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1st advert page 
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ADVERTISING SECTION 



THIS EMPTY 




It takes brain to 
earn money — trained brain! 

The man without training is 
usually the man without 
cash. You can train your 
brainl Thousands of men 
have done it through spare- 
time study of I. C. S. Courses. 
Be a cash man— be a trained 
man— mail this coupon! 



INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENCE SCHOOLS 



BOX 4908-G, SCRANTON, PENNA. 

Without cost or obligation, please send me a copy of your booklet, “Who Wins 
and Why,” and full particulars about the subject before which I have marked X: 



□ Architect 

□ Architectural Draftsman 

□ Building Estimating 

O Contractor and Builder 

□ Structural Draftsman 

□ Structural Engineer 

□ Management of Inventions 

□ Electrical Engineer 

□ Electric Lighting 

□ Welding, Electric and Gas 

□ Reading Shop Blueprints 

□ Boilermaker 

□ Business Management 

□ Office Management 

□ Industrial Management 

□ Traffic Management 
O Accountancy 

□ Coat Accountant 



TECHNICAL AND INDUSTRIAL COURSES 



CH Heat Treatment of Metals 

□ Sheet Metal Worker 

□ Telegraph Engineer 

□ Telephone Work □ Radio 

□ Mechanical Engineering 

□ Mechanical Draftsman 

□ Machinist □ Toolmaker 

□ Patternmaker 

□ Diesel Engines 

□ Aviation Engines 

□ Automobile Mechanic 

□ Refrigeration 

BUSINESS TRAINING COURSES 

□ C. P. Accountant □ Service Station Salesmanship 

□ Bookkeeping □ First Year College 

□ Secretarial Work □ Business Correspondence 

□ Spanish □ French □ Stenography and Typing 

□ Salesmanship Q Civil Service □ Mail Carrier 

□ Advertising □ Railway Mail Clerk 



□ Plumbing □ Steam Fitting 

□ Heating □ Ventilation 

O Air Conditioning 

□ Steam Engineer 

□ Steam Electric Engineer 

□ Marine Engineer 

□ R. R. Locomotives 

O R. R. Section Foreman 
O Air Brakes □ R. II. Signalmen 

□ Highway Engineering 

□ Civil Engineering 

□ Surveying and Mapping 



O Bridge Engineer 

□ Bridge and Building Foreman 

□ Chemistry 

□ Pharmacy 

□ Coal Mining 

□ Mine Foreman 

□ Navigation 

□ Cotton Manufacturing 

□ Woolen Manufacturing 

□ Agriculture 

□ Fruit Growing 

□ Poultry Farming 

□ Grade School Subjects 

□ High School Subjects 

□ College Preparatory 

□ Illustrating 

□ Cartooning 

□ Lettering Show Cards □ Signs 



Name 5 . Address 

City .State .. Present Position 

It vou reside in Canada, send this coupon to the International Correspondence Schools Canadian, Limited, Montreal, Canada 

AST-1 

Please mention this magazine when answering advertisement? 




On Sale Third Wednesday of liach Month 




A STREET & SMITH PUBLICATION 



The entire contents of tMt magazine are protected by copyright, and must not be reprinted without the publishers’ permission. 

Feature: Table of Contents 

AT THE MOUNTAINS OF 

MADNESS (Part I) . . . H. P. Lovecraft . . 8 

beginning one oj the most vivid science-fiction word pictures we have 
ever had the pleasure of reading . 

Novelettes: 

DEATH CLOUD .... David R. Daniels . . 46 

Men had inherited fear from generation to generation — but fear does 
not build ; it destroys. 

MATHEMATICA .... John Russell Fearn . . 64 

To the beginning of time — to the essence of thought — on a journey 
which knows no returning. 

CONES Frank Belknap Long , Jr. 122 

Jlere was strange force which devoured — and all man's science wus 
of no avail I 

Short Stories: 

THE SEEING BLINDNESS . . /. Earle Wycoff . . 33 

Only one thing he overlooked — one thing! 

BURIED MOON . Raymond Z. Gallun . . 37 

Out of the dim and hoary past comes a hope for the present — but if 
a man's a man 

THE SHAPES R. De Witt Miller . . 60 

Some (lav — somehow — the call would go forth and they would flee 
into the vastness whence they came. 

DON KELZ OF THE I. S. P. . . Clifton B. Kruse . . 88 

Another swashbuckling story of the Interplanetary Space Patrol — 
and its duties. 

THE PSYCHO POWER 

CONQUEST R. R. Winterbotham . 140 

Unto the end of time there shall be conflict, and as science progresses 
it grows more fierce. 

Serial Novel: 

BLUE MAGIC (Conclusion) . . Charles Willard Diffin . 99 

Ending the story of a misused power. 

Readers' Department: 

BRASS TACKS (The Open House of Controversy) . . . 151 

EDITOR’S PAGE 139 

Cover Painting by Howard V. Brown 
Story illustrations by Elliott Dold, Jr., Marchioni, Wesso, Brown, 
Thompson, Scbneeman. 



Single Copy, 20 Cents <33* '« Yearly Subscription, $2.00 

Monthly publication Issued by Street & Smith Publications. Inc., 79-89 Seventh Avenue, New York, N. Y. 
George <\ Smith. .Ir., President; Ormond V. Gould, Vice President and Treasurer; Artemas Holmes, Vice President 
and Secretary; Clarence C. Vernam, Vice President. Copyright, 1936, by Street & Smith Publications, Inc.. New 
York. Copyright, 1936, by Street & Smith Publications, Inc., Great Britain. Entered as Second-class Matter 
September 13, 1933, at the Post Office at New York, N. Y., under Act of Congress of March 3, 1879. Subscriptions 
to Cuba, I)om. Republic, Haiti, Spain, Central and South American Countries except The Guianas and British 
Honduras, $2.25 per year. To all other Foreign Countries, including The Guianas and British Honduras, $2.75 per year. 
We do not accept responsibility for the retur.i of unsolicited manuscripts. 

To facilitate handling, the author should inclose a self-addressed envelope with the rflhuisite postage attached. 

STREET & SMITH PUBLICATIONS, INC., 79 7th AVE., NEW YORK, N. Y. 




ADVERTISING SECTION 




I'll take your train- 
ing. That’s what S. J. 
Ebert said. He has 
made good money and 
found success in 
Radio. 



tufm Staid-. 

I will Train You at Home 



MO / 1 

I’m not interested. I 
That’s what this fel- 1 
low said. Today he 1 
would be ashamed if \ 
I gave you hia real . 
name. 


L v 




■na 



for a GOOD JOB IN RADIO 




These two fellows had the same chance. 
They each clipped and sent me a coupon, like 
the one in this ad. They got my book on 
Badio’ s opportunities. 

S. J. Ebert. 104-B Quadrangle, University 
of Iowa, Iowa City, Iowa, saw that Radio 
offered him a real chance. He enrolled. The 
other fellow, whom we will call John Doe, 
wrote that he wasn't interested. He was 
just one of those fellows who wants a better 
job and better pay, but never does anything 
about it. One of the many who spend their 
lives in a low- pay, no-future job. because 
they haven't the ambition, the determination, 
the action it takes to succeed. 

But re*d what S. J. Ebert wrote me and re- 
member that John Doe had the same chance: 
"Upon graduation I accepted a job as serv- 
iceman, and within three weeks was made 
Service Manager. This job paid me $40 to 
$50 a week compared with SIS I earned in 
a shoe factory before. Eight months later 
I went with Station KVVCR as operator. 
From there I went to KTNT. Now I am 
Radio Engineer with WSUI. I certainly 
recommend the N.R.I. to all interested in 
the gfeatest field of all. Radio." 

Gat ready for Jobs like these. Many 
Radio Exports make $30, $50, 

$75 a week 

Spare time and full time set servicing: in- 
stalling, operating, maintaining broadcast. 



“I want to help you. 
If you are earning 
less than $35 a week 
I believe I can raise 
your pay. However, 
I will let you decide 
that. Let me show 
you what I have done 
for others, what I am 
prepared to do for 
you. Get my book, 
read it over, and de- 
cide one way or an- 
other.” /. E. Smith , 



aviation, commercial* police, ship and tele- 
vision stations. Opportunities with Radio 

dealers and jobbers. A service shop or retail 
Radio business of your own. I'll train you 
for these and other good jobs in connection 
with the manufacture, sale and service of 
Radio sending and receiving sets, auto 
Radios, loud speaker systems, short wave 
sets. etc. 

Sav« Money— Learn at Home. Money 
Back Agreement Protec t s You 



tlcal experience— makes learning at home 
easy, fascinating practical. I will agree in 
writing to refund your money if you are not 
satisfied with my Lesson and Instruction 
Service when you graduate. 

Many Earn $5, $10, $15 a Week In j 
Spare Tlpie While Learning 

That's what many of my students earn in 
spare time while taking my Course. I send 
you Extra Money Job Sheets containing 
tested plans and ideas to help you do it. 
Many students have made $200 to $1,000 in 
spare time while learning. Nearly every 
neighborhood offers a spare time serviceman 
an opportunity to make good money. I’ll 
show you how to “cash In" — show you why 
my Course is Famous as "the Course that 
pays for itself.” 

Find Gut What Radio Offers You 

Mail the coupon. My hook is free to any 
ambitious fellow over fifteen years of age. 
It tells you about Radio’s spare time and 
full time opportunities — about my Course, 
what I give you. what nv students and grad- 
uates do and earn. There is no obligation. 
Act today. Mail coupon in an envelope or 
paste on a lc postal cagd. Do it right now. 

J. E. SMITH, President 
National Radio Institute, Dept* 6AD 
Washington, D. C. 





FOR FREE BOOK OF FACTS ABOUT RADI 



J J. E. SMITH. President. Dent. CAD 
I National Radio Institute. Washington, D. C. 

I Dear Mr. Smith: Without obligating me, send your 
| book which points out the spare time and full time Job 

■ opportunities in Radio and your 50-50 method of training 
men at home in spare time to become Radio Experts, 
g (Please Write Plainly) 



Hold your job. I’ll train you quickly and 
inexpensively right at home in your spare 
time to be a Radio Expert. You don’t need 
a high school or college education. My 50-50 
method of training — half with lessons, half 
with Radio equipment — gives you broad prac- 



* NAME age 

I ADDRESS 

■ CITT STATE 



L 



J 



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ADVERTISING SECTION 




fowis your chance to 



with it to an important position. Today there la practically no competition in 



The Diesel 



Engineer 



Is Your Job Safe? 

Just as the gasoline engine changed the jobs 
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What This New Field Offers you 

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Get our Free Diesel Booklet and find out what 
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———American School, Dept. D-17, Drexel Avenue at 58th Street, Chicago, Illinois ■■ 



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ELECTRICITY 



"LEARN by doing" 

In 90 
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I WILL FINANCE I 
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I 



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GET READY 
IMMEDIATELY 

Men— Women 
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Education 
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.^FRANKLIN INSTITUTE. 

/ Dept. El 96, Rochester. N. Y. 

Sirs: Rush to me without charge (1) 
32-page book with list of U. S. Govern- 
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Name 



these jobs. 



■Xlf PC DON’T BE CUT 

II p X Until You Try This 
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BROOKS COMPANY, 188B State SU Marshall, Mich- 




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ADVERTISING SECTION 




OLD MONEY 

WANTED 

We Pry The World's Hi chest Prices 




* 5000.00 



DON CORRADO ROMANO 

"founder of UP 

ROMANO'S TO 

com shop 



EACH 



Amazing Profits 

For Those Who Know 

OLD MONEY! 



Big Cash Premiums 

FOR HUNDREDS OF COINS 
NOW CIRCULATING 

There are literally thousands of old coins and 
bills that we want at once and for which we 
will pay big cash premiums. Many of these coins are now passing from hand to 
hand in circulation. Today or tomorrow a valuable coin may come into your 
possession. Watch your change. Know what to look for. 

Don’t sell your coins, encased postage stamps, or paper money to any other 
dealer until you have first seen the prices that we will pay for them. 

WE WILL PAY FOR 1909 CENTS UP TO $10.00 EACH 

1860 Cents $ 50.00 — Cents of 1861, 1864, 1865, 1869, 1870, 1881, 18,0, $ 20.00 
each — Half Cents $ 250.00 — Large Copper Cents $ 2000.00 — Flying Eagle Cents 
$ 20 . 00 — Half Dimes $1 50 . 00 — 20c Pieces $ 1 00 . 00 — 25c before 1873, $ 300 . 00 — 
50c before 1879, $ 750.00 — Silver Dollars before 1374, $ 2500.00 — Trade 
Dollars $ 250.00 — Gold Dollars $ 1 000.00 — $2.50 Gold Pieces before 1876, 
$ 600.00 — $3 Gold Pieces $ 1000.00 — $5 Gold Pieces before 1888, $5000.00 
— $10 Gold Pieces before 1908, $ 150.00 — Commemorative Half Dollars 
$ 6.00 — Commemorative Gold Coins $1 1 5 . 00 . 

PAPER MONEY — Fractional Currency $26.00. Confederate Bills $1 5.C0. 
Encased Postage Stamps $1 2.00. 

FOREIGN COINS— Certain Copper or Silver Coins $1 5.00. Gold Coins $1 50.00, etc. 

Don’t Wait! Send Dime Today (or Our Large Illustrated List Before Sending Colne 
Address your envelope to: 

ROMANO'S COIN SHOP 

Dept. 584 Springfield, Mass. 



CUT FILL OUT AND MAIL TODAY ! 



ROMANO'S COIN SHOP, Dept. 584 

Springfield, Mass. 

Gentlemen: Please Bend me your large illustrated 
list for which I enclose 10c in cash carefully wrapped. 

(Please print plainly.) 

NAME 



ADDRESS. 
CITY 



- STATE . 



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ADVERTISING SECTION 




Here's 

a Queer Way . 
to Leant Music.' 

XT 0 teacher— no monotonous exercises or confusing details. Just a 
simple, easy, home-study method. Takes only a few minutes — 
averages only a few cents- a (lay. No ''grind" 
or hard work. Every step is clear as crystal 
— simple as A-B-C throughout. You'll be 
surprised at your own rapid progress. From 
the start you are playing real tunes hy note. 

Quickly learn to play "Jazz” or classical 
selections— right at home In your spare time. 

Free Book and Demonstration Lesson 
Don't be a wallflower. Send for Free 
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These explain our wonderful home study 
method fully and show you how easily and 
quickly you can learn to play at little ex- 
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Write NOW. 

U. S. SCHOOL OF MUSIC 

3591 Brunswick Bldg.. New York City 



Pick Your Instrument 
Piano Violin 

Oroan Clarinet 
Ukulele Flute 
Cornet Harp 
Trombone ’Cello 
Saxophone Pieeolo 
Mandolin Guitar 
Banjo Accordion 

Harmony and 
Composition 
Voice and Speech 
Culture 

Drums and Traps 
Automatic Finger 
Control 
Trumpet 



S* ^POTATO CHIP 
BUSINESS 



Iff YOUR KITCHEN and 
MAKE MONEY' 



B UY potatoes for 2c a lb. Make 
sensational new "Greaseless” Po- 
tato Chips and sell for 35c a lb. 

Idval hufiin ps for women in npare or full 
time. Smull investment buys complete 
• oaiomrnt. No experience needed. I show 
you bow to irer store* to cell all you make; tell you how to make profit first day. 
Ali information, picture* . price* and terms sent free. Send a postal card for 
Free facte on this bin Home Bueinesa'' Opportunity. 

G. H. HARDT, Dept. 471, 325 West Hurcn St., Chicago, III. 





rrrnTI 



Village Carrier 
P. O. Laborer 
R. F. D. Carrier 
Special Agent 
Customs Inspector 
City Mail Carrier 
P. O. Clerk 
.. Matron 

( ) 'Special Investigator ( 
<)T; 



POSTMASTER 
Seamstress 
Auditor 
Stenographer 
U.8. Border Patrol 
Telephone Opr. 
Watchman 
Meat Inspector 

Secret Service Oprj 

Typist ( ) File Clerk 

INSTRUCTION BUREAU,DapU5I.St. Unit, Mo. 

8end me FREE particulars "How to Qualify for 
Government Positions” marked “X”. Salaries, 
locations, opportunities, etc. ALL SENT FREE. 



TIRE PRICES CUT! 



on GOODYEAR. '-mW 

GOODRICH FIRESTONE 'WM , 

FKK-II V. and other /•/, 

run u a famous makes ' 



CICK.II.C. AND OTHER 
non u a famous makes > 



Here are the outstanding standard 
brand tire bargains of the year, re- 
paired by the improved "crise -cross’* 
method and by skilled workmen. Yon 
take no risk when you buy from York, 
th« old reliable 



We Receive 
Hundreds of 
letters like this 
"1 bought *84x4* 
of you 2 years ago 
and it is on my truck 
yet and good for an- 
other year.”— John 
H . Silver thorn , Mi ch . 



tire house with 19 
years of service In 
this field. Thou- 
sands of tire users 
throughout the 
U. S. declare oor 
tires give them 
LONG, SATISFAC- 
TORYSERVICE. BuyNew- at 
these reduced prices and SAVE MONEY. 
Don*t Delay — Order Today ! 



BALLOON TIRES 

Size Rim Tires Tubes 

29x4.40-21 $1 .85 *0.85 
29x4.50-20 2.00 
30x4.50-21 2.10 
28x4.75-19 2.15 
29x4.75-20 2.20 .95 

29x5.00-19 2.55 1.05 
30x5.00-20 2.55 1.06 
6.25-17 2.60 1.16 
28x5.25-18 2.60 1.15 
29x5.25-19 2.60 1.15 
80x5.25-20 2.60 1.15 
31x5.25-21 2.90 1.15 
5.50-17 2.95 1.15 
28x5.50-18 2.95 1.15 
29x5.50-19 2.95 1.16 

6.00- 17 3.10 1.15 
30x6.00-18 3.10 1.15 
31x6.00-19 3.10 1.15 
32x6.00-20 3.10 1.25 
33x6.00-21 3.25 1.25 
82x6.50-20 3.35 1.35 

6.00- 16 3.65 1.46 



Size Tires Tubes 

30x3* 51.85*0.75 
31x4 2.C“ — 

32x4 2.< — 

33x4 2.65 

34x4 2.90 

32x4* 3.00 



REGULAR CORD TIRE! 




Size Tires Tubes 

33x4* $3.10 *1.16 
34x4* 3.10 1.16 
30x5 3.30 1.36 

33x6 3.40 1.46 

35x6 _ 3.S5_1_.65 



HEAVY DUTY TRUCK TIRES 

(High Pressure) 

Size Tires Tubes 
34x7 $9.95 *3.26 
38x7 9.95 3.96 

36x8 10.65 3.96 

40x8 12.65 4.16 

LOON TIRES 
Size Tires Tubes 
7.60-20 $5.40 *3.78 
8.25-20 7.60 4.96 
9.00-20 9.40 6.65 



Size Tires Tubes 

30x6 $3.70 *1.95 
33x5 3.75 1.45 

34x6 3.95 2.00 

32x6 7.25 2.76 

36x6 9.00 8.95 

TRUCK BAL 
Size Tires Tubes 



1.65 



7.00-20 4.85 2.9 



LtALtFb WANTED 



ALL OTHER 
SIZES 

SEND ONLY $1.00 DEPOSIT on each tire ordered. 
($4.00 on each Truck Tire,) We ship balance C. O. D. 
Deduct 5 per cent if cash is sent in full with order. To 
fill order promptly we may substitute brands if neces- 
sary. ALL TUBES BRAND NEW-GUARANTEED— 
HEAVY GAUGE CIRCULAR MOLDED. Guard against 
price advances. Order Now. We agree to replace at 
half prica any tire failing to give 9 months* service. 

YORK TIRE & RUBBER CO., Dept. 3042 

3855-59 Cottage Grove Ave. Chicago, III. 



Classified 

Advertising 

Detectives — Instructions 

DETECTIVES EARN BIG MONEY. Work home or travel. 
DETECTIVE particulars free. Experience unnecessary. Write, 
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Hoboken. N. J. 

Patents Secured 

PATENTS — Reasonable terms. Book and advice free. L. F. 
Randolph, Dept. 513, Washington, D. C. 

PATENTS SECURED. Two valuable booklets sent free. Write 
immediately: Victor J. Evans At Co., 811-B, Victor Building, 

Washington, D. C. 



Agents Wanted 



AGENTS: Smash go prices. Santos Coffee 12o lb. 4-oz. Vanilla 
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150 other bargains. Experience unnecessary. Write Carnation Co., 
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Razor Blades 



RAZOR BLADES — single and double edge. Packages of live. 
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ADVERTISING SECTION 



Kidneys Cause 
Much Trouble 
Says Doctor 

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The School That Mas Trained Over 1 .200 C. P. A. 'a 

Checkers 

BECOME AN EXPERT 

The book, that really teaches checker science. A complete course 
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At ,he MOUNTAINS 
S" of MADNESS 

A gripping word picture in three 
parts — of science — and a lost world l 



by H. P. LOVECRAFT 



I AM forced into speech because 
men of science have refused to 
follow my advice without knowing 
why. It is altogether against my will 
that I tell my reasons for opposing this 
contemplated invasion of the antarctic 
— with its vast fossil hunt and its 
wholesale horing and melting of the 
ancient ice caps. And I am the more 
reluctant because my warning may be 
in vain. 

Doubt of the real facts, as I must 
reveal them, is inevitable; yet, if I 
suppressed what will seem extravagant 
and incredible there would be nothing 
left. The hitherto withheld photo- 
graphs, born ordinary and aerial, will 
count in my favor, for they are damn- 
ably vivid and graphic. Still, they will 
be doubted because of the great lengths 
to which clever fakery can be carried. 
The ink drawings, of course, will be 
jeered at as obvious impostures ; not- 
withstanding a strangeness and tech- 
nique which art experts ought to remark 
and puzzle over. 

In the end I must rely on the judg- 
ment and standing of the few scientific 
leaders who have, on the one hand, suffi- 
cient independence of thought to weigh 
my data on its own hideously convincing 
merits or in the light of certain pri- 
mordial and highly baffling myth cycles ; 



and on the other hand, sufficient in- 
fluence to deter the exploring world in 
general from any rash and over- 
ambitious program in the region of 
those mountains of madness. 

It is an unfortunate fact that rela- 
tively obscure men like myself and my 
associates, connected only with a small 
university, have little chance of making 
an impression where matters of a wildly 
bizarre or highly controversial natures 
are concerned. 

It is further against us that we are 
not, in the strictest sense, specialists in 
the fields which came primarily to be 
concerned. As a geologist, my object 
in leading the Miskatonic University 
Expedition was wholly that of securing 
deep-level specimens of rock and soil 
from various parts of the antarctic 
continent, aided by the remarkable drill 
devised by Professor Frank H. Pabodie 
of our engineering department. 

I had no wish to be a pioneer in any 
other field than this, but I did hope 
that the use of this new mechanical 
appliance at different points along pre- 
viously explored paths would bring to 
light materials of a sort hitherto un- 
reached by the ordinary methods of 
collection. 

Pabodie’s drilling apparatus, as the 
public already knows from our reports. 







MraNWIMfe'* 

I it#^^ 



nln 



v? 



Zf was a queer state of sensations — being in the lee of vast, 
silent pinnacles, where ranks shot up like a wall reaching 
the sky at the world’s rim. 



10 



ASTOUNDING STORIES 



was unique and radical in its lightness, 
portability, and capacity to combine the 
ordinary Artesian drill principle with 
the principle of the small circular rock 
drill in such a way as to cope quickly 
with strata of varying hardness. 

Steel head, jointed rods, gasoline 
motor, collapsible wooden derrick, dy- 
namiting paraphernalia, cording, rub- 
bish-removal auger, and sectional piping 
for bores five inches wide and up to 
one thousand feet deep all formed, with 
needed accessories, no greater load than 
three seven-dog sledges could carry. 
This was made possible by the clever 
aluminum alloy of which most of the 
metal objects were fashioned. 

Four large Domier aeroplanes, de- 
signed especially for the tremendous 
altitude flying necessary on the antarctic 
plateau and with added fuel-warming 
and quick-starting devices worked out 
by Pabodie, could transport our entire 
expedition from a base at the edge of 
the great ice barrier to various suitable 
inland points, and from these points a 
sufficient quota of dogs would serve us. 

We planned to cover as great an area 
as one antarctic season — or longer, if 
absolutely necessary — would permit, 

operating mostly in the mountain ranges 
and on the plateau south of Ross Sea; 
regions explored in varying degree by 
Shackleton, Amundsen, Scott, and 
Byrd. With frequent changes of camp, 
made by aeroplane and involving dis- 
tances great enough to be of geological 
significance, we expected to unearth a 
quite unprecedented amount of material 
— especially in the pre-Cambrian strata 
of which so narrow a range of antarctic 
specimens had previously been secured. 

We wished also to obtain as great as 
possible a variety of the upper fossil- 
iferous rocks, since the primal life 
history of this bleak realm of ice and 
death is of the highest importance to 
our knowledge of the earth’s past. 
That the antarctic continent was once 



temperate and even tropical, with a 
teeming vegetable and animal life of 
which the lichens, marine fauna, 
arachnida, and penguins of the northern 
edge are the only survivals, is a matter 
of common information ; and we hoped 
to expand that information in variety, 
accuracy, and detail. When a simple 
boring revealed fossiliferous signs, we 
would enlarge the aperture by blasting, 
in order to get specimens of suitable 
size and condition. 

Our borings, of varying depth ac- 
cording to the promise held out by the 
upper soil or rock, were to be confined 
to exposed, or nearly exposed, land sur- 
faces — these inevitably being slopes and 
ridges because of the mile or two-mile 
thickness of solid ice overlying the 
lower levels. 

We could not afford to waste drilling 
depth on any considerable amount of 
more glaciation, though Pabodie had 
worked out a plan for sinking copper 
electrodes in thick clusters of borings 
and melting off limited areas of ice with 
current from a gasoline-driven dynamo 

It is this plan— which we could not 
put into effect except experimentally on 
an expedition such as ours — that the 
coming Starkweather-Moore Expedition 
proposes to follow, despite the warnings 
I have issued since our return from 
the antarctic. 

THE PUBLIC knows of the Miska- 
tonic Expedition through our frequent 
wireless reports to the Arkham Adver- 
tiser and Associated Press, and through 
the later articles by Pabodie and my- 
self. We consisted of four men from 
the University — Pabodie, Lake of the 
biology department, Atwood of the 
physics department — also a meteorolo- 
gist — and myself, representing geology 
and having nominal command, also six- 
teen assistants : seven graduate students 
from Miskatonic and nine skilled me- 
chanics. 

Of these sixteen, twelve were quali- 



AT THE MOUNTAINS OF MADNESS 



11 



fied aeroplane pilots, all but two of 
whom were competent wireless opera- 
tors. Eight of them understood navi- 
gation with compass and sextant, as 
did Pabodie, Atwood and I. In addition, 
of course, our two ships — wooden 
exwhalers, reinforced for ice conditions 
and having auxiliary steam — were fully 
manned. 

The Nathaniel Derby Pickman 
Foundation, aided by a few special 
contributions, financed the expedition ; 
hence our preparations were extremely 
thorough, despite the absence of great 
publicity. 

The dogs, sledges, machines, camp 
materials, and unassembled parts of 
our five planes were delivered in Boston, 
and there our ships were loaded. 

We were marvelously well-equipped 
for our specific purposes, and in all 
matters pertaining to supplies, regimen, 
transportation, and camp construction 
we profited by the excellent example 
of our many recent and exceptionally 
brilliant predecessors. It was the un- 
usual number and fame of these 
predecessors which made our own 
expedition — ample though it was — so 
little noticed by the world at large. 

As the newspapers told, we sailed 
from Boston Harbor on September 2nd, 
1930, taking a leisurely course down 
the coast and through the Panama 
Canal, and stopping at Samoa and 
Hobart, Tasmania, at which latter place 
we took on final supplies. 

None of our exploring party had 
ever been in the polar regions before, 
hence we all relied greatly on our ship 
captains — J. B. Douglas, commanding 
the brig Arkham, and serving as com- 
mander of the sea party, and Georg 
Thorfinnssen, commanding the barque 
Miskatonic — -both veteran whalers in 
antarctic waters. 

As we left the inhabited world be- 
hind the sun sank lower and lower in 
the north, and stayed longer and longer 



above the horizon each day. At about 
62° South Latitude we sighted our first 
icebergs — tablelike objects with vertical 
sides— and just before reaching the 
antarctic circle, which we crossed on 
October 20th with appropriately quaint 
ceremonies, we were considerably trou- 
bled with field ice. 

The falling temperature bothered me 
considerably after our long voyage 
through the tropics, but I tried to brace 
up for the worse rigors to come. On 
many occasions the curious atmospheric 
effects enchanted me vastly; these in- 
cluded a strikingly vivid mirage — the 
first I had ever seen— in which distant 
bergs became the battlements of un- 
imaginable cosmic castles. 

Pushing through the ice, which was 
fortunately neither extensive nor 
thickly packed, we regained open water 
at South Latitude 67°, East Longitude 
175°. On the morning of October 26th 
a strong land blink appeared on the 
south, and before noon we all felt a 
thrill of excitement at beholding a vast, 
lofty, and snow-clad mountain chain 
which opened out and covered the whole 
vista ahead. At last we had encountered 
an outpost of the great unknown con- 
tinent and its cryptic world of frozen 
death. 

These peaks were obviously the 
Admiralty Range discovered by Ross, 
and it would now be our task to round 
Cape Adare and sail down the east 
coast of Victoria Land to our contem- 
plated base on the shore of McMurdo 
Sound, at the fcot of the volcano 
Erebus in South Latitude 77° 9'. 

THE LAST LAP of the voyage was 
vivid and fancy-stirring. Great barren 
peaks of mystery loomed up constantly 
against the west as the low northern 
sun of noon or the still lower horizon- 
grazing southern sun of midnight 
poured its hazy reddish rays over the 
white snow, bluish ice and water lanes, 
and black bits of exposed granite slope. 



12 



ASTOUNDING STORIES 



Through the desolate summits swept- 
raging, intermittent gusts of the terrible 
antarctic wind, whose cadences some- 
times held vague suggestions of a wild 
and half-sentient musical piping, with 
notes extending over a wide range, and 
which for some subconscious mnemonic 
reason seemed to me disquieting and 
even dimly terrible. 

Something about the scene reminded 
me of the strange and disturbing Asian 
paintings of Nicholas Roerich, and of 
the still stranger and more disturbing 
descriptions of the evilly fabled plateau 
of Leng which occur in the dreaded 
N ecronomicon of the mad Arab Abdul 
Alhazred. I was rather sorry, later on, 
that I had ever looked into that mon- 
strous book at the college library. 

On the 7th of November, sight of 
the westward range having been tem- 
porarily lost, we passed Franklin Is- 
land; and the next day descried the 
cones of Mts. Erebus and Terror on 
Ross Island ahead, with the long line 
of the Parry Mountains beyond. There 
now stretched off to the east the low, 
white line of the great ice barrier, rising 
perpendicularly to a height of two hun- 
dred feet like the rocky cliffs of Quebec, 
and marking the end of southward 
navigation. 

In the afternoon we entered Mc- 
Murdo Sound and stood off the coast 
in the lee of smoking Mt. Erebus. The 
scoriaceous peak towered up some 
twelve thousand seven hundred feet 
against the eastern sky, like a Japanese 
print of the sacred Fujiyama, while 
beyond it rose the white, ghostlike 
height of Mt. Terror, ten thousand nine 
hundred feet in altitude, and now ex- 
tinct as a volcano. 

Puffs of smoke from Erebus came 
intermittently, and one of the graduate 
assistants — a brilliant young fellow 
named Dan forth — pointed out what 
looked like lava on the snowy slope, 
remarking that this mountain, discov- 
ered in 1840, had undoubtedly been the 



source of Poe’s image when he wrote 
seven years later: 

“ — the lavas that restlessly roll 
Their sulphurou^ currents down Yaanek 
In the ultimate climes of the pole — 

That groan as they roll down Mount Yaanek 
In the realms of the boreal pole.” 

Danforth was a great reader of 
bizarre material, and had talked a good 
deal of Poe. I was interested myself 
because of the antarctic scene of Poe’s 
only long story — the disturbing and 
enigmatical Arthur Gordon Pym. On 
the barren shore, and on the lofty ice 
barrier in the background, myriad of 
grotesque penguins squawked and 
flapped their fins, while many fat seals 
were visible on the water, swimming 
or sprawling across large cakes of 
slowly drifting ice. * 

Using small boats, we effected a diffi- 
cult landing on Ross Island shortly 
after midnight, on the morning of the 
9th, carrying a line of cable from each 
of the ships and preparing to unload 
supplies by means of a breeches-buoy 
arrangement. 

Our sensations on first treading 
antarctic soil were poignant and com- 
plex, even though at this particular 
point the Scott and Shackleton expedi- 
tions had preceded us. 

Our camp on the frozen shore below 
the volcano’s slope was only a pro- 
visional one, headquarters being kept 
aboard the Arkham. We landed all our 
drilling apparatus, dogs, sledges, tents, 
provisions, gasoline tanks, experimental 
ice-melting outfit, cameras, both ordi- 
nary and aerial, aeroplane parts, and 
other accessories, including three small 
portable wireless outfits — besides those 
in the planes — capable of communicating 
with the Arkham’s large outfit from 
any part of the antarctic continent that 
we would be likely to visit. 

The ship’s outfit, communicating with 
the outside world, was to convey press 
reports to the Arkham Advertiser’s 



AT THE MOUNTAINS OF MADNESS 



13 



powerful wireless station on Kingsport 
Head, Mass. We hoped to complete 
our work during a single antarctic sum- 
mer; but if this proved impossible we 
would winter on the Arkham, sending 
the Miskatonic north before the freez- 
ing of the ice for another summer’s 
supplies. 

I NEED NOT REPEAT what the 
newspapers have already published 
about our early work; of our ascent 
of Mt. Erebus ; our successful mineral 
borings at several points on Ross Is- 
land and the singular speed with which 
Pabodie’s apparatus accomplished them, 
even through solid rock layers ; our 
provisional test of the small ice-melting 
equipment; our perilous ascent of the 
great barrier with sledges and supplies ; 
and our final assembling of five huge 
aeroplanes at the camp atop the barrier. 

The health of our land party — twenty 
men and fifty-five Alaskan sledge dogs 
— was remarkable, though of course we 
had so far encountered no really 
destructive temperatures or windstorms. 

For the most part, the thermometer 
varied between zero and 20° or 25° 
above, and our experience with New 
England winters had accustomed us to 
rigors of this sort. The barrier camp 
was semipermanent, and destined to be 
a storage cache for gasoline, provisions, 
dynamite, and other supplies. 

Only four of our planes were needed 
to carry the actual exploring material, 
the fifth being left with a pilot and two 
men, from the ships,- at the storage 
cache to form a means of reaching us 
from the Arkham in case all our ex- 
ploring planes were lost. 

Later, when not using all the other 
planes for moving apparatus, we would 
employ one or two in a shuttle trans- 
portation service between this cache and 
another permanent base on the great 
plateau from six hundred to seven hun- 
dred miles southward, beyond Beard- 
more Glacier. 



Despite the almost unanimous ac- 
counts of appalling winds and tempests 
that pour down from the plateau, we 
determined to dispense with intermedi- 
ate bases, taking our chances in the 
interest of economy and probable 
efficiency. 

Wireless reports have spoken of the 
breathtaking, four-hour, nonstop flight 
of our squadron on November 21st over 
the lofty shelf ice, with vast peaks 
rising on the west, and the unfathomed 
silences echoing to the sound of our 
engines. 

Wind troubled us only moderately, 
and our radio compasses helped us 
through the one opaque fog we en- 
countered. When the vast rise loomed 
ahead, between Latitudes 83° and 84°, 
we knew we had reached Beardmore 
Glacier, the largest valley glacier in the 
world, and that the frozen sea was now 
giving place to a frowning and moun- 
tainous coast line. 

At last we were truly entering the 
white, aeon-dead world of the ultimate 
south. Even as we realized it we saw 
the peak of Mt. Nansen in the eastern 
distance, towering up to its height of 
almost fifteen thousand feet. 

The successful establishment of the 
southern base above the glacier in 
Latitude 86° 7', East Longitude 174° 
23', and the phenomenally rapid, and 
effective borings and blastings made at 
various points reached by our sledge 
trips and short aeroplane flights, are 
matters of history; as is the arduous 
and triumphant ascent of Mt. Nansen 
by Pabodie and two of the graduate 
students — Gedney and Carroll — on De- 
cember 13th to 15th. 

We were some eight thousand five 
hundred feet above sea-level. When 
experimental drillings revealed solid 
ground only twelve feet down through 
the snow and ice at certain points, we 
made considerable use of the small melt- 
ing apparatus and sunk bores and per- 
formed dynamiting at many places, 



14 



ASTOUNDING STORIES 



where no previous explorer had ever 
thought of securing mineral specimens. 

The pre-Cambrian granites and bea- 
con sandstones thus obtained confirmed 
our belief that this plateau was homo- 
geneous, with the great bulk of the 
continent to the west, but somewhat 
different from the parts lying eastward 
below South America — which we then 
thought to form a separate and smaller 
continent divided from the larger one 
by a frozen junction of Ross and 
Weddell Seas, though Byrd has since 
disproved the report. 

In certain of the sandstones, dyna- 
mited and chiseled after boring revealed 
their nature, we found some highly 
interesting fossil markings and frag- 
ments; notably ferns, seaweeds, trilo- 
bites, crinoids, and such mollusks as 
linguellae and gastropods — all of which 
seemed of real significance in connec- 
tion with the region’s primordial history. 
There was also a queer triangular, 
striated marking, about a foot in 
greatest diameter, which Lake pieced 
together from three fragments of slate 
brought up from a deep-blasted aper- 
ture. 

These fragments came from a point 
to the westward, near the Queen 
Alexandra Range; and Lake, as a 
biologist, seemed to find their curious 
marking unusually puzzling and provo- 
cative, though to my geological eye it 
looked not unlike some of the ripple 
effects reasonably common in the sedi- 
mentary rocks. 

Since slate is no more than a meta- 
morphic formation into which a 
sedimentary stratum is pressed, and 
since the pressure itself produces odd 
distorting effects on any markings 
which may exist, I saw no reason for 
extreme wonder over the striated de- 
pression. 

ON JANUARY 6, 1931, Lake, 
Pabodie, Daniels, all six of the students, 
four mechanics, and myself flew di- 



rectly over the south pole in two of the 
great planes, being forced down once 
by a sudden high wind, which, fortu- 
nately, did not develop into a typical 
storm. This was, as the papers have 
stated, one of several observation flights, 
during others of which we tried to 
discern new topographical features in 
areas unreached by previous explorers. 

Our early flights were disappointing 
in this latter respect, though they 
afforded us some magnificent examples 
of the richly fantastic and deceptive, 
mirages of the polar regions, of which 
our sea voyage had given us some brief 
foretastes. 

Distant mountains floated in the sky 
as enchanted cities, and often the whole 
white world would dissolve into a gold, 
silver, and scarlet land of Dunsanian 
dreams and adventurous expectancy 
under the magic of the low midnight 
sun. 

On cloudy days we had considerable 
trouble in flying, owing to the tendency 
of snowy earth and sky to merge into 
one mystical opalescent void with no 
visible horizon to mark the junction of 
the two. 

At length we resolved to carry out 
our original plan of flying five hundred 
miles eastward with all four exploring 
planes and establishing a fresh sub-base 
at a point which would - probably be on 
the smaller continental division, as we 
mistakenly conceived it. Geological 
specimens obtained there would be de- 
sirable for purposes of comparison. 

Our health so far had remained 
excellent — lime juice well offsetting the 
steady diet of tinned and salted food, 
and temperatures generally above zero 
enabling us to do without our thickest 
furs. 

It was now midsummer, and with 
haste and care we might be able to con- 
clude work by March and avoid a 
tedious wintering through the long 
antarctic night. Several savage wind- 
storms had burst upon us from the 



AT THE MOUNTAINS OF MADNESS 



IS 



west, but we had escaped damage 
through the skill of Atwood in devising 
rudimentary aeroplane shelters and 
windbreaks of heavy snow blocks, and 
in reinforcing the principal camp build- 
ings with snow. Our good luck and 
efficiency had indeed been almost un- 
canny. 

The outside world knew, of course, 
of our program, and was told also of 
Lake’s strange and dogged insistence 
on a westward — or rather, northwest- 
ward — prospecting trip before our radi- 
cal shift to the new base. 

It seems that he had pondered a great 
deal and with alarmingly radical daring 
over that triangular striated marking 
in the slate ; reading into it certain 
contradictions in nature and geological 
period which whetted his curiosity to 
the utmost, and made him avid to sink 
more borings and blastings in the west- 
stretching formation to which the ex- 
humed fragments evidently belonged. 

He was strangely convinced that the 
marking was the print of some bulky, 
unknown, and radically unclassifiable 
organism of considerably advanced 
evolution, notwithstanding that the rock 
which bore it was of so vastly ancient 
a date — Cambrian if not actually pre- 
Cambrian — as to preclude the probable 
existence not only on all highly evolved 
life, but of any life at all above the 
unicellular or at most the trilobite stage. 
These fragments, with their odd mark- 
ing, must have been five hundred mil- 
lion to a thousand million years old. 

II. 

POPULAR IMAGINATION, I 
judge, responded actively to our wire- 
less bulletins of Lake’s start north- 
westward into regions never trodden 
by human foot or penetrated by human 
imagination, though we did not men- 
tion his wild hopes of revolutionizing 
the entire sciences of biology and 
geology. 



His preliminary sledging and boring 
journey of January 11th to 18th with 
Pabodie and five others — marred by the 
loss of two dogs in an upset when 
crossing one of the great pressure ridges 
in the ice — had brought up more and 
more of the Archaean slate; and even I 
was interested by the singular profusion 
of evident fossil markings in that un- 
believably ancient stratum. 

These markings, however, were of 
very primitive life forms involving no 
great paradox except that any life forms 
should occur in rock as definitely pre- 
Cambrian as this seemed to be ; hence 
I still failed to see the good sense of 
Lake’s demand for an interlude in our 
time-saving program — an interlude re- 
quiring the use of all four planes, many 
men, and the whole of the expedition’s 
mechanical apparatus. 

I did not, in the end, veto the plan, 
though I decided not to accompany the 
northwestward party despite Lake’s plea 
for my geological advice. While they 
were gone, I would remain at the base 
with Pabodie and five men and work 
out final plans for the eastward shift. 
In preparation for this transfer, one 
of the planes had begun to move up a 
good gasoline supply from McMurdo 
Sound; but this could wait temporarily. 
I kept with me one sledge and nine 
dogs, since it is unwise to be at any 
time without possible transportation in 
an utterly tenantless world of seon-long 
death. 

Lake’s subexpedition into the un- 
known, as every one will recall, sent 
out its own reports from the short- 
wave transmitters on the planes ; these 
being simultaneously picked up by our 
apparatus at the southern base and by 
the Arkham at McMurdo Sound, 
whence they were relayed to the outside 
world on wave lengths up to fifty 
meters. 

The start was made January 22nd at 
4 a. m. ; and the first wireless message 
we received came only two hours later, 



16 



ASTOUNDING STORIES 



when Lake spoke of descending and 
starting a small-scale ice-melting and 
bore at a point some three hundred 
miles away from us. Six hours after 
that a second and very excited message 
told of the frantic, beaverlike work 
whereby a shallow shaft had been sunk 
and blasted, culminating in the discovery 
of slate fragments with several mark- 
ings approximately like the one which 
had caused the original puzzlement. 

Three hours later a brief bulletin 
announced the resumption of the flight 
in the teeth of a raw and piercing gale ; 
and when I dispatched a message of 
protest against further hazards, Lake 
replied curtly that his new specimens 
made any hazard worth taking. 

I saw that his excitement had reached 
the point of mutiny, and that I could 
do nothing to check this headlong risk 
of the whole expedition’s success; but 
it was appalling to think of his plung- 
ing deeper and deeper into that treach- 
erous and sinister white immensity of 
tempests and unfathomed mysteries 
which stretched off for some fifteen 
hundred miles to the half-known, half- 
suspected coast line of Queen Mary 
and Knox Lands. 

THEN, in about a.n hour and a half 
more, came that doubly excited message 
from Lake’s moving plane, which almost 
reversed my sentiments and made me 
wish I had accompanied the party : 

“10 :05 p. m. On the wing. After 
snowstorm, have spied mountain range 
ahead higher than any hitherto seen. 
May equal Himalayas, allowing for 
height of plateau. Probable Latitude 
76° 15', Longitude 113° 10' E. Reaches 
far as can see to right and left. Sus- 
picion of two smoking cones. All peaks 
black and bare of snow. Gale blowing 
off them impedes navigation.” 

After that Pabodie, the men, and I 
hung breathlessly over the receiver. 
Thought of this titanic mountain ram- 
part seven hundred miles away inflamed 



our deepest sense of adventure; and we 
rejoiced that our expedition, if not our- 
selves personally, had been its dis- 
coverers. In half an hour Lake called 
us again: 

“Moulton’s plane forced down on 
plateau in foothills, but nobody hurt and 
perhaps can repair. Shall transfer es- 
sentials to other three for return or fur- 
ther moves if necessary, but no more 
heavy plane travel needed just now. 
Mountains surpass anything in imagina- 
tion. Am going up scouting in Carroll’s 
plane, with all weight out. 

“You can’t imagine anything like this. 
Highest peaks must go over thirty-five 
thousand feet. Everest out of the run- 
ning. Atwood to work out height with 
theodolite while Carroll and I go up. 
Probably wrong about cones, for forma- 
tions look stratified. Possibly pre- 
Cambrian slate with other strata mixed 
in. Queer sky line effects — regular sec- 
tions of cubes clinging to highest peaks. 
Whole thing marvelous in red-gold light 
of low sun. Like land of mystery in a 
dream or gateway to forbidden world of 
untrodden wonder. Wish you were here 
to study.” 

Though it was technically sleeping 
time, not one of us listeners thought 
for a moment of retiring. It must have 
been a good deal the same at McMurdo 
Sound, where the supply cache and the 
Arkham were also getting the messages ; 
for Captain Douglas gave out a call 
congratulating everybody on the im- 
portant find, and Sherman, the cache 
operator, seconded his sentiments. We 
were sorry, of course, about the dam- 
aged aeroplane, but hoped it could be 
easily mended. Then, at eleven p. m., 
came another call from Lake : 

“Up with Carroll over highest foot- 
hills. Don’t dare try really tall peaks in 
present weather, but shall later. Fright- 
ful work climbing, and hard going at this 
altitude, but worth it. Great range fairly 
solid, hence can’t get any glimpses be- 
yond. Main summits exceed Himalayas, 
and very queer. Range looks like pre- 
Cambrian slate, with plain signs of many 
other upheaved strata. Was wrong about 
volcanism. Goes farther in either direc- 

AST — 1 



AT THE MOUNTAINS OF MADNESS 



17 



tion than we can see. Swept clear of 
snow above about twenty-one thousand 
feet. 

“Odd formations on slopes of highest 
mountains. Great low square blocks with 
exactly vertical sides, and rectangular 
lines of low, vertical ramparts, like the old 
Asian castles clinging to steep mountains 
in Roerich’s paintings. Impressive from 
distance. Flew close to some, and Car- 
roll thought they were formed of smaller 
separate pieces, but that is probably 
weathering. Most edges crumbled and 
rounded off as if exposed to storms and 
climate changes for millions of years. 

“Parts, especially upper parts, seem to 
be of lighter-colored rock than any vis- 
ible strata on slopes proper, hence an evi- 
dently crystalline origin. Close flying 
shows many cave mouths, some unusually 
regular in outline, square or semicircu- 
lar. You must come and investigate. 
Think I saw rampart squarely on top of 
one peak. Height seems about thirty 
thousand to thirty-five thousand feet. Am 
up twenty-one thousand five hundred my- 
self, in devilish, gnawing cold. Wind 
whistles and pipes through passes and in 
and out of caves, but no flying danger 
so far.” 

From then on for another half hour 
Lake kept up a running fire of com- 
ment, and expressed his intention of 
climbing some of the peaks on foot. I 
replied that I would join him as soon 
as he could send a plane, and that 
Pabodie and I would work out the best 
gasoline plan — just where and how to 
concentrate our supply in view of the 
expedition’s altered character. 

Obviously, Lake’s boring operations, 
as well as his aeroplane activities, would 
need a great deal delivered at the new 
base which he was to establish at the 
foot of the mountains ; and it was pos- 
sible that the eastward flight might not 
be made, after all, this season. In con- 
nection with this business I called 
Captain Douglas and asked him to get 
as much as possible out of the ships 
and up the barrier with the single dog 
team we had left there. A direct route 
across the unknown region between 
Lake and McMurdo Sound was what 
we really ought to establish. 

AST-2 



Lake called me later to say that he 
had decided to let the camp stay where 
Moulton’s plane had been forced down, 
and where repairs had already pro- 
gressed somewhat. The ice sheet was 
very thin, with dark ground here and 
there visible, and he would sink some 
borings and blasts at that very point 
before making any sledge trips or climb- 
ing expeditions. 

He spoke of the ineffable majesty 
of the whole scene, and the queer state 
of his sensations at being in the lee of 
vast, silent pinnacles, whose ranks shot 
up like a wall reaching the sky at the 
world’s rim. 

Atwood’s theodolite observations had 
placed the height of the five tallest peaks 
at from thirty thousand to thirty-four 
thousand feet. 

The windswept nature of the terrain 
clearly disturbed Lake, for it argued 
the occasional existence of prodigious 
gales, violent beyond anything we had 
so far encountered. His camp lay a 
little more than five miles from where 
the higher foothills rose abruptly. 

I could almost trace a note of sub- 
conscious alarm in his words — flashed 
across a glacial void of seven hundred 
miles — as he urged that we all hasten 
with the matter and get the strange, 
new region disposed of as soon as pos- 
sible. He was about to rest now, after 
a continuous day’s work of almost 
unparalleled speed, strenuousness, and 
results. 

IN THE MORNING I had a three- 
cornered wireless talk with Lake and 
Captain Douglas at their widely sepa- 
rated bases. It was agreed that one 
of Lake’s planes would come to my base 
for Pabodie, the five men, and myself, 
as well as for all the fuel it could carry. 
The rest of the fuel question, depending 
on our decision about an easterly trip, 
could wait for a few days, since Lake 
had enough for immediate camp heat 
and borings. 



18 



ASTOUNDING STORIES 



Eventually the old southern base 
ought to be restocked, but if we post- 
poned the easterly trip we would not 
use it till the next summer, and, mean- 
while, Lake must send a plane to ex- 
plore a direct route between his new 
mountains and McMurdo Sound. 

Pabodie and I prepared to close our 
base for a short or long period, as the 
case might be. If we wintered in the 
antarctic we would probably fly straight 
from Lake’s base to the Arkham with- 
out returning to this spot. Some of our 
conical tents had already been rein- 
forced by blocks of hard snow, and 
now we decided to complete the job of 
making a permanent village. Owing to 
a very liberal tent supply. Lake had 
with him all that his base would need, 
even after our arrival. I wirelessed 
that Pabodie and I would be ready for 
the northwestward, move after one day's 
work and one night’s rest. 

Our labors, however, were not very 
steady after four p. m., for about that 
time Lake began sending in the most 
extraordinary and excited messages. 
His working day had started unpro- 
pitiously, since an aeroplane survey of 
the nearly exposed rock surfaces 
showed an entire absence of those 
Archaean and primordial strata for 
which he was looking, and which formed 
so great a part of the colossal peaks 
that loomed up at a tantalizing distance 
from the camp. 

Most of the rocks glimpsed were 
apparently Jurassic and Comanchian 
sandstones and Permian and Triassic 
schists, with now and then a glossy 
black outcropping suggesting a hard and 
slaty coal. 

This rather discouraged Lake, whose 
plans all hinged on unearthing speci- 
mens more than five hundred million 
years older. It was clear to him that 
in order to recover the Archaean slate 
vein in which he had found the odd 
markings, he would have to make a long 
sledge trip from these foothills to the 



steep slopes of the gigantic mountains 
themselves. 

He had resolved, nevertheless, to do 
some local boring as part of the ex- 
pedition’s general program ; hence, he 
set up the drill and put five men to 
work with it while the rest finished 
settling the camp and repairing the 
damaged aeroplane. The softest visible 
rock — a sandstone about a quarter of a 
mile from the camp — had been chosen 
for the first sampling; and the drill 
made excellent progress without much 
supplementary blasting. 

It was about three hours afterward, 
following the first really heavy blast 
of the operation, that the shouting of 
the drill crew was heard ; and that young 
Gedney— the acting foreman — rushed 
into the camp with the startling news. 

THEY had struck a cave. Early in 
the boring the sandstone had given 
place to a vein of Comanchian lime- 
stone, full of minute fossil cephalopods, 
corals, echini, and spirifera, and with 
occasional suggestions of siliceous' 
sponges and marine vertebrate bones — 
the latter probably of teliosts, sharks, 
and ganoids. 

This, in itself, was important enough, 
as affording the first vertebrate fossils 
the expedition had yet secured ; but 
when shortly afterward the drill head 
dropped through the stratum into ap- 
parent vacancy, a wholly new and 
doubly intense wave of excitement 
spread among the excavators. 

A good-sized blast had laid open the 
subterrane secret ; and now, through 
a jagged aperture perhaps five feet 
across and three feet thick, there 
yawned before the avid searchers a sec- 
tion of shallow limestone hollowing 
worn more than fifty million years ago 
by the trickling ground waters of a 
bygone tropic world. 

The hollowed layer was not more 
than seven or eight feet deep, but ex- 
tended off indefinitely in all directions 



AT THE MOUNTAINS OF MADNESS 



19 



and had a fresh, slightly moving air 
which suggested its membership in an 
extensive subterranean system. Its 
roof and floor were abundantly 
equipped with large stalactites and 
stalagmites, some of which met in 
columnar form. 

But important above all else was the 
vast deposit of shells and bones, which 
in places nearly choked the passage. 
Washed down from unknown jungles 
of Mesozoic tree ferns and fungi, and 
forests of Tertiary cycads, fan palms, 
and primitive angiosperms, this osseous 
medley contained representatives of 
more Cretaceous, Eocene, and other 
animal species than the greatest paleon- 
tologist could have counted or classified 
in a year. Mollusks, crustacean armor, 
fishes, amphibians, reptiles, birds, and 
early mammals — great and small, known 
and unknown. 

No wonder Gedney ran back to the 
camp shouting, and no wonder every 
one else dropped work and rushed head- 
long through the biting cold to where 
the tall derrick marked a new-found 
gateway to secrets of inner earth and 
vanished aeons. 

When Lake had satisfied the first 
keen edge of his curiosity he scribbled 
a message in his notebook and had 
young Moulton run back to the camp to 
dispatch it by wireless. 

This was my first word of the dis- 
covery, and it told of the identification 
of early shells, bones of ganoids and 
placoderms, remnants of labyrintho- 
donta and thecoiidea, great mosasaur 
skull fragments, dinosaur vertebrae and 
armor plates, pterodactyl teeth and wing 
bones, Archaeopteryx debris, Miocene 
sharks’ teeth, primitive bird skulls, and 
other bones of archaic mammals such as 
Palaeotheres, Xiphodons, Eohippi, Oreo- 
dons, and Titanotheriidae. 

There was nothing as recent as a 
mastodon, elephant, true camel, deer, or 
bovine animal; hence Lake concluded 
that the last deposits had occurred dur- 



ing the Oligocene Age, and that the 
hollowed stratum had lain in its present 
dried, dead, and inaccessible state for 
at least thirty million years. 

On the other hand, the prevalence of 
very early life forms was singular in 
the highest degree. Though the lime- 
stone formation was, on the evidence 
of such typical imbedded fossils as 
ventriculites, positively and unmistak- 
ably Comanchian and not a particle 
earlier; the free fragments in the hollow 
space included a surprising proportion 
from organisms hitherto considered as 
peculiar to far older periods — even 
rudimentary fishes, mollusks, and corals 
as remote as the Silurian or Ordovician. 

The inevitable inference was that in 
this part of the world there had been 
a remarkable and unique degree of con- 
tinuity between the life of over three 
hundred million years ago and that of 
only thirty million years ago. How far 
this continuity had extended beyond the 
Oligocene Age when the cavern was 
closed was of course past all specula- 
tion. 

In any event, the coming of the 
frightful ice in the Pleistocene some five 
hundred thousand years ago — a mere 
yesterday as compared with the age of 
this cavity — must have put an end to 
any of the primal forms which had 
locally managed to outlive their common 
terms. 

LAKE was not content to let his first 
message stand, but had another bulletin 
written and dispatched across the snow 
to the camp before Moulton could get 
back. After that Moulton stayed at 
the wireless in one of the planes, trans- 
mitting to me— and to the Arkham for 
relaying to the outside world — the fre- 
quent postscripts which Lake sent him 
by a succession of messengers. 

Those who followed the newspapers 
will remember tbe excitement created 
among men of science by that after- 
noon’s reports— reports which have 



20 



ASTOUNDING STORIES 




finally led, after all these years, to the 
organization of that very Starkweather- 
Moore Expedition which I am so 
anxious to dissuade from its purposes. 
I had better give the messages literally 
as Lake* sent them, and as our base 
operator McTighe translated them from 
his pencil shorthand : 

Fowler makes discovery of highest im- 
portance in sandstone and limestone frag- 
ments from blasts. Several distinct tri- 
angular striated prints like those in 
archsean slate, proving that source sur- 
vived from over six hundred million years 
ago to Comanchian times without more 
than moderate morphological changes and 
decrease in average size. Comanchian 
prints apparently more primitive or de- 
cadent, if anything, than older ones. Em- 



phasize importance of discovery in press. 
Will mean to biology what Einstein has 
meant to mathematics and physics. Joins 
up with my previous work and ampli- 
fies conclusions. 

Appears to indicate, as I suspected, that 
earth has seen whole cycle or cycles of 
organic life before known one that be- 
gins with Archseozoic cells. Was evolved 
and specialized not later than a thousand 
million years ago, when planet was young 
and Recently uninhabitable for any life 
forms of normal protoplasmic structure. 
Question arises when, where, and how de- 
velopment took place. 



Later. Examining certain skeletal frag- 
ments of large land and marine saurians 
and primitive mammals, find singular lo- 
cal wounds or injuries to bony structure 




AT THE MOUNTAINS OF MADNESS 



21 




not attributable to any known predatory 
or carnivorous animal of any period. Of 
two sorts — straight, penetrant bores, and 
apparently hacking incisions. One or two 
cases of cleanly severed bones. Not many 
specimens affected. Am sending to camp 
for electric torches. Will extend search 
area underground by hacking away 
stalactites. 



Still later. Have found peculiar soap- 
stone fragment about six inches across 
and an inch and a half thick, wholly un- 
like any visible local formation — greenish, 
but no evidences to place its period. 
Has curious smoothness and regularity. 
Shaped like five-pointed star with tips 
broken off, and signs of other cleavage at 
inward angles and in center of surface. 
Small, smooth depression in center of un- 



broken surface. Arouses much curiosity 
as to source and weathering. Probably 
some freak of water action. Carroll, 
with magnifier, thinks he can make out 
additional markings of geologic signifi- 
cance. Groups of tiny dots in regular pat- 
terns. Dogs growing uneasy as we work, 
and seem to hate this soapstone. Must 
see if it has any peculiar odor. Will re- 
port again when Mills gets back with 
light and we start on underground area. 



10:15 p. m. Important discovery. 
Orrendorf and Watkins, working under- 
ground at 9 :45 with light, found mon- 
strous barrel-shaped fossil of wholly un- 
known nature ; probably vegetable unless 
overgrown specimen of unknown marine 
radiata. Tissue evidently preserved by 
mineral salts. Tough as leather, but as- 



22 



ASTOUNDING STORIES 



tonishing flexibility retained in places. 
Marks of broken-off parts at ends and 
around sides. Six feet end to end, three 
and five tenths feet central diameter, ta- 
pering to one foot at each end. Like a 
barret with five bulging ridges in place of 
staves. Lateral breakages, as of thinnish 
stalks, are at equator in middle of these 
ridges. In furrows between ridges are 
curious growths — combs or wings that 
fold up and spread out like fans. All 
greatly damaged but one, which gives 
almost seven-foot wing spread. Arrange- 
ment reminds one of certain monsters of 
primal myth, especially fabled Elder 
Things in Necronomicon. 

These wings seem to be membranous, 
stretched on framework of glandular tub- 
ing. Apparent minute orifices in frame 
tubing at wing tips. Ends of body 
shriveled, giving no clue to interior or 
to what has been broken off there. Must 
dissect when we get back to camp. Can't 
decide whether vegetable or animal. 
Many features obviously of almost in- 
credible primitiveness. Have set all hands 
cutting stalactites and looking for fur- 
ther specimens. Additional scarred bones 
found, but these must wait. Having 
trouble with dogs. They can’t endure 
the new specimen, and would probably 
tear it to pieces if we didn't keep it at a 
distance from them. 



11:30 p. m. Attention, Dyer, Pabodie, 
Douglas. Matter of highest— I might say 
transcendent — importance. Arkham must 
relay to Kingsport Head Station at once. 
Strange barrel growth is the archaean 
thing that left prints in rocks. Mills, 
Boudreau, and Fowler discover cluster of 
thirteen more at underground point forty 
feet from aperture. Mixed with curi- 
ously rounded and configured soapstone 
fragments smaller than one previously 
found — star-shaped, but no marks of 
breakage except at some of the points. 

Of organic specimens, eight apparently 
perfect, with all appendages. Have 
brought all to surface, leading off dogs 
to distance. They cannot stand the things. 
Give close attention to description and re- 
peat back for accuracy. Papers must get 
this right. 

Objects are eight feet long all over. 
Six-foot, five-ridged barrel torso three 
and five tenths feet central diameter, one 
foot end diameters. Dark gray, flexible, 
and infinitely tough. . Seven-foot mem- 



branous wings of same color, found 
folded, spread out of furrows between 
ridges. Wing framework tubular or 
glandular, or lighter gray, with orifices 
at wing tips. Spread wings have ser- 
rated edge. Around equator, one at cen- 
tral apex of each of the five vertical, 
stavelike ridges, are five systems of light- 
gray flexible arms or tentacles found 
tighly folded to torso but expansible to 
maximum length of over three feet. Like 
arms of primitive crinoid. Single stalks 
three inches diameter branch after six 
inches into five substalks, each of which 
branches after eight inches into five small, 
tapering tentacles or tendrils, giving each 
stalk a total of twenty-five tentacles. 

At top of torso blunt, bulbous neck of 
lighter gray, with gill-like suggestions, 
holds yellowish five-pointed starfish- 
shaped apparent head covered with three- 
inch wiry cilia of various prismatic 
colors. 

Head thick and puffy, about two feet 
point to point, with three-inch flexible 
yellowish tubes projecting from each 
point. Slit in exact center of top prob- 
ably breathing aperture. At end of each 
tube is spherical expansion where yellow- 
ish membrane rolls back on handling to 
reveal glassy, red-irised globe, evidently 
an eye. 

Five slightly longer reddish tubes start 
from inner angles of starfish-shaped head 
and end in saclike swellings of same 
color which, upon pressure, open to bell- 
shaped orifices two inches maximum di- 
ameter and lined with sharp, white tooth- 
like projections — probable mouths. All 
these tubes, cilia, and points of starfish 
head, found folded tightly down ; tubes 
and points clinging to bulbous neck and 
torso. Flexibility surprising despite vast 
toughness. 

At bottom of torso, rough but dissimi- 
larly functioning counterparts of head ar- 
rangements exist. Bulbous light-gray 
pseudoneck, without gill suggestions, 
holds greenish five-pointed starfish ar- 
rangement. 

Tough, muscular arms four feet long 
and tapering from seven inches diameter 
at base to about two and five tenths at 
point. To each point is attached small 
end of a greenish five-veined membrane- 
ous triangle eight inches long and six 
wide at farther end. This is the paddle, 
fin, or pseudofoot which had made 
prints in rocks from a thousand million 
to fifty or sixty million years old. 

From inner angles of starfish arrange- 



AT THE MOUNTAINS OF MADNESS 



23 



ment project two-foot reddish tubes ta- 
pering from three inches diameter at base 
to one at tip. Orifices at tips. All these 
parts infinitely tough and leathery, but 
extremely flexible. Four-foot arms with 
paddles undoubtedly used for locomotion 
of some sort, marine or otherwise. 
When moved, display suggestions of ex- 
aggerated muscularity. As found, all 
these projections tightly folded over 
pseudoneck and end of torso, correspond- 
ing to projections at other end. 

Cannot yet assign positively to animal 
or vegetable kingdom, but odds now fa- 
vor animal. Probably represents incred- 
ibly advanced evolution of radiata with- 
out loss of certain primitive features. 
Echinoderm at a resemblances unmistak- 
able despite local contradictory evidences. 

Wing structure puzzles in view of 
probable marine habitat, but may have 
use in water navigation. Symmetry is 
curiously vegetablelike, suggesting vege- 
table’s essential up-and-down structure 
rather than animal’s fore-and-aft struc- 
ture. Fabulously early date of evolu- 
tion, preceding even simplest archsean 
Protozoa hitherto known, baffles all con- 
jecture as to origin. 

Complete specimens have such uncanny 
resemblance to certain creatures of primal 
myth that suggestion of ancient exist- 
ence outside antarctic becomes inevitable. 
Dyer and Pabodie have read Necronomi- 
con and seen Clark Ashton Smith’s night- 
mare paintings based on text, and will 
understand when I speak of Elder Things 
supposed to have created all earth life 
as jest or mistake. Students have always 
thought conception formed from morbid 
imaginative treatment of very ancient 
tropical radiata. Also like prehistoric 
folklore things Wilmarth has spoken of 
— Cthulhu cult appendages, etc. 

Vast field of. study opened. Deposits 
probably of late Cretaceous or early 
Eocene period, judging from associated 
specimens. Massive stalagmites deposited 
above them. Hard work hewing out, but 
toughness prevented damage. State of 
preservation miraculous, evidently owing 
to limestone action. No more found so 
far, but will resume search later. Job 
now to get fourteen huge specimens to 
camp without dogs, which bark furiously 
and can’t be trusted near them. 

With nine men — three left to guard the 
dogs — we ought to manage the three 
sledges fairly well, though wind is bad. 
Must establish plane communication with 
McMurdo Sound and begin shipping ma- 



terial. But I’ve got to dissect one of 
these things before we take any rest. 
Wish I had a real laboratory here. 
Dyer better kick himself for having tried 
to stop my westward trip. First the 
world’s greatest mountains, and then this. 

If this last isn’t the high spot of the ex- 
pedition, I don’t know what is. We’re 
made scientifically. Congrats, Pabodie, 
on the drill that opened up the cave. Now 
will Arkham please repeat description? 

THE SENSATIONS of Pabodie 
and myself at receipt of this report 
were almost beyond description, nor 
were our companions much behind us 
in enthusiasm. McTighe, who had 
hastily translated a few high spots as 
they came from the droning receiving 
set, wrote out the entire message from 
his shorthand version, as soon as Lake’s 
operator signed off. 

All appreciated the epoch-making 
significance of the discovery, and I sent 
Lake congratulations as soon as the 
Arkham’s operator had repeated back 
the descriptive parts as requested ; and 
my example was followed by Sherman 
from his station at the McMurdo Sound 
supply cache, as well as by Captain 
Douglas of the Arkham. 

Later, as head of the expedition, I 
added some remarks to be relayed 
through the Arkham to the outside 
world. Of course, rest was an absurd 
thought amidst this excitement ; and my 
only wish was to get to Lake’s camp 
as quickly as I could. It disappointed 
me when he sent word that a rising 
mountain gale made early aerial travel 
impossible. 

But within an hour and a half in- 
terest again rose to banish disappoint- 
ment. Lake, sending more messages, 
told of the completely successful trans- 
portation of the fourteen great speci- 
mens to the camp. It had been a hard 
pull, for the things were surprisingly 
heavy ; but nine men had accomplished 
it very neatly. Now some of the party 
were hurriedly building a snow corral 
at a safe distance from the camp, to 



24 



ASTOUNDING STORIES 



which the dogs could be brought for 
greater convenience in feeding. The 
specimens were laid out on the hard 
snow near the camp, save for one on 
which Lake was making crude attempts 
at dissection. 

This dissection seemed to be a greater 
task than had been expected, for, despite 
the heat of a gasoline stove in the 
newly raised laboratory tent, the decep- 
tively flexible tissues of the chosen 
specimen — a powerful and intact one — 
lost nothing of their more than leathery 
toughness. Lake was puzzled as to how 
he might make the requisite incisions 
without violence destructive enough to 
upset all the structural niceties he was 
looking for. 

He had, it is true, seven more perfect 
specimens; but these were too few to 
use up recklessly unless the cave might 
later yield an unlimited supply. Accord- 
ingly, he removed the specimen and 
dragged in one which, though having 
remnants of the starfish arrangements 
at both ends, was badly crushed and 
partly disrupted along one of the great 
torso furrows. 

Results, quickly reported over the 
wireless, were baffling and provocative 
indeed. Nothing like delicacy or 
accuracy was possible with instruments 
hardly able to cut the anomalous tissue, 
but the little that was achieved left us 
all awed and bewildered. 

Existing biology would have to be 
wholly revised, for this thing was no 
product of any cell growth science 
knows about. There had been scarcely 
any mineral replacement, and despite an 
age of perhaps forty million years the 
internal organs were wholly intact. 

The leathery, undeteriorative, and al- 
most indestructible quality was an 
inherent attribute of the thing’s form 
of organization, and pertained to some 
paleocene cycle of invertebrate evolu- 
tion utterly beyond our powers of specu- 
lation. 



At first all that Lake found was dry, 
but as the heated tent produced its thaw- 
ing effect, organic moisture of pungent 
and offensive odor was encountered 
toward the thing’s uninjured side. It 
was not blood, but a thick, dark-green 
fluid apparently answering the same 
purpose. By the time Lake reached 
this stage all thirty-seven dogs had been 
brought to the still uncompleted corral 
near the camp, and even at that distance 
set up a savage barking and show of 
restlessness at the acrid, diffusive smell. 

FAR from helping to place the 
strange entity, this provisional dissec- 
tion merely deepened its mystery. All 
guesses about its external members had 
been correct, and on the evidence of 
these one could hardly hesitate to call 
the thing animal, but internal inspection 
brought up so many vegetable evidences 
that Lake was left hopelessly at sea. 
It had digestion and circulation, and 
eliminated waste matter through the 
reddish tubes of its starfish-shaped base. 

Cursorily, one would say that its 
respiratory apparatus handled oxygen 
ratber than carbon dioxide; and there 
were odd evidences of air-storage 
chambers and methods of shifting res- 
piration from the external orifice to at 
least two other fully developed breath- 
ing systems — gills and pores. 

Clearly, it was amphibian and prob- 
ably adapted to long airless hibernation 
periods as well. Vocal organs seemed 
present in connection with the main 
respiratory system, but they presented 
anomalies beyond immediate solution. 
Articulate speech, in the sense of syl- 
lable utterance, seemed barely conceiv- 
able, but musical piping notes covering 
a wide range were highly probable. The 
muscular system was almost pre- 
naturally developed. 

The nervous system was so complex 
and highly developed as to leave Lake 
aghast. Though excessively primitive 
and archaic in some respects, the thing 



AT THE MOUNTAINS OF MADNESS 



25 



had a set of gangliar centers and con- 
nectives arguing the very extremes of 
specialized development. 

Its five-lobed brain was surprisingly 
advanced, and there were signs of a 
sensory equipment, served in part 
through the wiry cilia of the head, in- 
volving factors alien to any other 
terrestrial organism. Probably it had 
more than five senses, so that its habits 
could not be predicted from any exist- 
ing analogy. 

It must, Lake thought, have been a 
creature of keen sensitiveness and deli- 
cately differentiated functions in its 
primal world — much like the ants and 
bees of to-day. It reproduced like the 
vegetable cryptogams, especially the 
pteridophyta ; having spore cases at the 
tips of the wings and evidently develop- 
ing from a thallus or prothallus. 

But to give it a name at this stage 
was mere folly. It looked like a radiate, 
but was clearly something more. It 
was partly, vegetable, but had three 
fourths of the essentials of animal 
structure. That it was marine in origin, 
its symmetrical contour and certain 
other attributes clearly indicated; yet 
one could not be exact as to the limit 
of its later adaptations. 

The wings, after all, held a persistent 
suggestion of the aerial. How it could 
have undergone its tremendously com- 
plex evolution on a new-born earth in 
time to leave prints in archsean rocks 
was so far beyond conception as to make 
Lake whimsically recall the primal 
myths about Great Old Ones who fil- 
tered down from the stars and concocted 
earth life as a joke or mistake ; and the 
wild tales of cosmic hill things from 
outside told by a folklorist colleague in 
Miskatonic’s English department. 

NATURALLY, he considered the 
possibility of the pre-Cambrian prints 
having been made by a less evolved an- 
cestor of the present specimens, but 



quickly rejected this too-facile theory 
upon considering the advanced struc- 
tural qualities of the older fossils. If 
anything, the later contours showed 
decadence rather than higher evolution. 

The size of the pseudofeet had de- 
creased, and the whole morphology 
seemed coarsened and simplified. More- 
over, the nerves and organs, just exam- 
ined, held singular suggestions of 
retrogression from forms still more 
complex. Atrophied and vestigial parts 
were surprisingly prevalent. Alto- 
gether, little could be said to have been 
solved ; and Lake fell back on mythol- 
ogy for a provisional name — jocosely 
dubbing his finds ‘‘The Elder Ones.” 

At about two-thirty a. m., having de- 
cided to postpone further work and get 
a little rest, he covered the dissected 
organism with a tarpaulin, emerged 
from the laboratory tent, and studied 
the intact specimens with renewed in- 
terest. 

The ceaseless antarctic sun had begun 
to limber up their tissues a trifle, so 
that the head points and tubes of two 
or three showed signs of unfolding; but 
Lake did not believe there was any 
danger of immediate decomposition in 
the almost subzero air. He did, how- 
ever, move all the undissected specimens 
closer together and throw a spare tent 
over them in order to keep off the direct 
solar rays. That would also help to 
keep their possible scent away from the 
dogs, whose hostile unrest was really 
becoming a problem, even at their sub- 
stantial distance and behind the higher 
and higher snow walls, which an in- 
creased quota of the men were hastening 
to raise around their quarters. 

He had to weight down the corners 
of the tent cloth with heavy blocks of 
snow to hold it in place amidst the 
rising gale, for the titan mountains 
seemed about to deliver some gravely 
severe blasts. Early apprehensions 
about sudden antarctic winds were 



26 



ASTOUNDING STORIES 



revived, and under Atwood’s super- 
vision precautions were taken to bank 
the tents, new dog corral, and crude 
aeroplane shelters with snow, on the 
mountainward side. These latter shel- 
ters, begun with hard snow blocks 
during odd moments, were by no means 
as high as they should have been ; and 
Lake finally detached all hands from 
other tasks to work on them. 

It was after four when Lake at last 
prepared to sign off and advised us all 
to share the rest period his outfit would 
take when the shelter walls were a little 
higher. He held some friendly chat 
with Pabodie over the ether, and re- 
peated his praise of the really marvelous 
drills that had helped him make his 
discovery. Atwood also sent greetings 
and praises. 

I gave Lake a warm word of con- 
gratulation, owning up that he was right 
about the western trip, and we all agreed 
to get in touch by wireless at ten in the 
morning. If the gale was then over, 
Lake would send a plane for the party 
at. my base. Just before retiring I dis- 
patched a final message to the Arkhatn, 
with instructions about toning down the 
day’s news for the outside world, since 
the full details seemed radical enough to 
rouse a wave of incredulity until further 
substantiated. 

III. 

NONE OF US, I imagine, slept very 
heavily or continuously that morning. 
Both the excitement of Lake’s discovery 
and the mounting fury of the wind were 
against such a thing. So savage was 
the blast even where we were, that we 
could not help wondering how much 
worse it was at Lake’s camp, directly 
under the vast unknown peaks that bred 
and delivered it. 

McTighe was awake at ten o’clock 
and tried to get Lake on the wireless, 
as agreed, but some electrical condition 
in the disturbed air to the westward 



seemed to prevent communication. We 
did, however, get the Arkhant, and 
Douglas told me that he had likewise 
been vainly trying to reach Lake. He 
had not known about the wind, for 
very little was blowing at McMurdo 
Sound, despite its persistent rage where 
we were. 

Throughout the day we all listened 
anxiously and tried to get Lake at in- 
tervals, but invariably without results. 
About noon a positive frenzy of wind 
stampeded out of the west, causing us 
to fear for the safety of our camp; but 
it eventually died down, with Only a 
moderate relapse at two p. m. 

After three o’clock it was very quiet, 
and we redoubled our efforts to get 
Lake. Reflecting that he had four 
planes, each provided with an excellent 
short-wave outfit, we could not imagine 
any ordinary accident capable of crip- 
pling all his wireless equipment at once. 
Nevertheless, the stony silence con- 
tinued, and when we thought of the 
delirious force the wind must have had 
in his locality we could not help making 
the most direful conjectures. 

By six o’clock our fears had become 
intense and definite, and after a wire- 
less consultation with Douglas and 
Thorfinnssen I resolved to take steps 
toward investigation. The fifth aero- 
plane, which we had left at the Mc- 
Murdo Sound supply cache with Sher- 
man and two sailors, was in good shape 
and ready for instant use, and it seemed 
that the very emergency for which it 
had been saved was now upon us. 

I got Sherman by wireless and 
ordered him to join me with the plane 
and the two sailors at the southern base 
as quickly as possible, the air conditions 
being apparently highly favorable. We 
then talked over the personnel of the 
coming investigation party, and decided 
that we would include all hands, to- 
gether with the sledge and dogs which 
I had kept with me. Even so great a 



AT THE MOUNTAINS OF MADNESS 



27 



load would not be too much for one of 
the huge planes built to our special 
orders for heavy machinery transporta- 
tion. At intervals I still tried to reach 
Lake with the wireless, but all to no 
purpose. 

Sherman, with the sailors Gunnarsson 
and Larsen, took off at seven thirty; 
and reported a quiet flight from several 
points on the wing. They arrived at 
our base at midnight, and all hands at 
once discussed the next move. It was 
risky business sailing over the antarctic 
in a single aeroplane without any line 
of bases, but no one drew back from 
what seemed like the plainest necessity. 
We turned in at two o’clock for a brief 
rest after some preliminary loading of 
the plane, but were up again in four 
hours to finish the loading and packing. 

At seven fifteen a. m., January 25th, 
we started northwestward under Mc- 
Tighe’s pilotage with ten men, seven 
dogs, a sledge, a fuel and food supply, 
and other items including the plane’s 
wireless outfit. The atmosphere was 
clear, fairly quiet, and relatively mild 
in temperature, and we anticipated very 
little trouble in reaching the latitude 
and longitude designated by Lake as 
the site of his camp. Our apprehen- 
sions were over what we might find, 
or fail to find, at the end of our 
journey, for silence continued to an- 
swer all calls dispatched to the camp. 

EVERY INCIDENT of that four- 
and-a-half-hour flight is burned into my 
recollection because of its crucial posi- 
tion in my life. It marked my loss, at 
the age of fifty-four, of all that peace 
and balance which the normal mind 
possesses through its accustomed con- 
ception of external nature and nature’s 
laws. 

Thenceforward the ten of us — but 
the student Danforth and myself above 
all others — were to face a hideously 
amplified world of lurking horrors 



which nothing can erase from our emo- 
tions, and which we would refrain from 
sharing with mankind in general if we 
could. The newspapers have printed 
the bulletins we sent from the moving 
plane, telling of our nonstop course, 
our two battles with treacherous upper- 
air gales, our glimpse of the broken 
surface where Lake had sunk his mid- 
journey shaft three days before, and 
our sight of a group of those strange 
fluffy snow cylinders noted by 

Amundsen and Byrd as rolling in the 
wind across the endless leagues of 
frozen plateau. 

There came a point, though, when our 
sensations could not be conveyed in any 
words the press would understand, and 
a later point when we had to adopt an 
actual rule of strict censorship. 

The sailor Larsen was first to spy 
the jagged line of witchlike cones and 
pinnacles ahead, and his shouts sent 
every one to the windows of the great 
cabined plane. Despite our speed, they 
were very slow in gaining prominence ; 
hence we knew that they must be in- 
finitely far off, and visible only because 
of their abnormal height. 

Little by little, however, they rose 
grimly into the western sky ; allowing 
us to distinguish various bare, bleak, 
blackish summits, and to catch the 
curious sense of phantasy which they 
inspired as seen in the reddish antarctic 
light against the provocative background 
of iridescent ice-dust clouds. 

In the whole spectacle there was a 
persistent, pervasive hint of stupend- 
ous secrecy and potential revelation. 
It was as if these stark, nightmare 
spires marked the pylons of a frightful 
gateway into forbidden spheres of 
dream, and complex gulfs of remote 
time, space, and ultradimensionality. I 
could not help feeling that they were 
evil things — mountains of madness 
whose farther slopes looked out over 
some accursed ultimate abyss. 



28 



ASTOUNDING STORIES 



That seething, half-luminous cloud 
background held ineffable suggestions 
of a vague, ethereal beyondness far 
more than terrestrially spatial, and gave 
appalling reminders of the utter remote- 
ness, separateness, desolation, and aeon- 
long death of this untrodden and un- 
fathomed austral world. 

It was young Danforth who drew 
our notice to the curious regularities 
of the higher mountain sky line — regu- 
larities like clinging fragments of 
perfect cubes, which Lake had men- 
tioned in his messages, and which 
indeed justified his comparison with the 
dreamlike suggestions of primordial 
temple ruins, on cloudy Asian moun- 
taintops so subtly and strangely painted 
by Roerich. 

There was indeed something haunt- 
ingly Roerichlike about this whole 
unearthly continent of mountainous 
mystery. I had felt it in October when 
we first caught sight of Victoria Land, 
and I felt it afresh now. I felt, too, 
another wave of uneasy consciousness 
of archaean mythical resemblances, of 
how disturbingly this lethal realm 
corresponded to the evilly famed plateau 
of Leng in the primal writings. 

Mythologists have placed Leng in 
Central Asia, but the racial memory of 
man — or of his predecessors — is long, 
and it may well be that certain tales 
have come down from lands and moun- 
tains and temples of horror earlier than 
Asia and earlier than any human world 
we know. 

A few daring mystics have hinted at 
a pre-Pleistocene origin for the frag- 
mentary Pnakotic Manuscripts, and 
have suggested that the devotees of 
Tsathoggua were as alien to mankind 
as Tsathoggua itself. 

Leng, wherever in space or time it 
might brood, was not a region I would 
care to be in or near, nor did I relish 
the proximity of a world that had ever 



bred such ambiguous and archaean mon- 
strosities as those Lake had just men- 
tioned. At the moment I felt sorry that 
I had ever read the abhorred 
Necronomicon, or talked so much with 
that unpleasantly erudite folklorist 
Wilmarth at the university. 

THIS MOOD undoubtedly served to 
aggravate my reaction to the bizarre 
mirage which burst upon us from the 
increasingly opalescent zenith as we 
drew near the mountains and began to 
make out the cumulative undulations of 
the foothills. I had seen dozens of 
polar mirages during the preceding 
weeks, some of them quite as uncanny 
and fantastically vivid as the present 
sample, but this one had a wholly novel 
and obscure quality of menacing sym- 
bolism, and I shuddered as the seething 
labyrinth of fabulous walls and towers 
and minarets loomed out of the trou- 
bled ice vapors above our heads. 

The effect was that of a Cyclopean 
city of no architecture known to man 
or to human imagination, with vast 
aggregations of night-black masonry 
embodying monstrous perversions of 
geometrical laws. There were trun- 
cated cones, sometimes terraced or 
fluted, surmounted by tall clyindrical 
shafts here and there bulbously en- 
larged and often capped with tiers of 
thinnish scalloped disks, and strange, 
beetling, tablelike constructions suggest- 
ing piles of multitudinous rectangular 
slabs or circular plates or five-pointed 
stars with each one overlapping the one 
beneath. 

There were composite cones and 
pyramids either alone or surmounting 
cylinders or cubes or flatter truncated 
cones and pyramids, and occasional 
needlelike spires in curious clusters of 
five. 

All of these’ febrile structures seemed 
knit together by tubular bridges cross- 
ing from one to the other at various 



AT THE MOUNTAINS OF MADNESS 



29 



dizzy heights, and the implied scale of 
the whole was terrifying and oppressive 
in its sheer gigantidsm. 

The general type of mirage was not 
unlike some of the wilder forms ob- 
served and drawn by the arctic whaler 
Scoresby in 1820, but at this time and 
place, with those dark, unknown moun- 
tain peaks soaring stupendously ahead, 
that anomalous elder-world discovery in 
our minds, and the pall of probable dis- 
aster enveloping the greater part of our 
expedition, we all seemed to find in it 
a taint of latent malignity and infinitely 
evil portent. 

I was glad when the mirage began to 
break up, though in the process the 
various nightmare turrets and cones 
assumed distorted, temporary forms of 
even vaster hideousness. As the whole 
illusion dissolved to churning opal- 
escence, we began to look earthward 
again, and saw that our journey’s end 
was not far off. 

The unknown mountains ahead rose 
dizzily up like a fearsome rampart of 
giants, their curious regularities show- 
ing with startling clearness even with- 
out a field glass. We were over the 
lowest foothills now, and could see 
amidst the snow, ice, and bare patches 
of their main plateau a couple of dark- 
ish spots which we took to be Lake’s 
camp and boring. 

The higher foothills shot up between 
five and six miles away, forming a 
range almost distinct from the terrify- 
ing line of more than Himalayan peaks 
beyond them. At length Ropes — the 
student who had relieved McTighe at 
the controls — began to head downward 
toward the left-hand dark spot whose 
size marked it as the camp. As he did 
so, McTighe sent out the last un- 
censored wireless message the world was 
to receive from our expedition. 

Every one, of course, has read the 
brief and unsatisfying bulletins of the 
rest of our antarctic sojourn. 



Some hours after our landing we 
sent a guarded report of the tragedy we 
found, and reluctantly announced the 
wiping out of the whole Lake party by 
the frightful wind of the preceding 
day, or of the night before that. There 
were eleven known dead, young Gedney 
was missing. 

People pardoned our hazy lack of 
details through realization of the shock 
the sad event must have caused us, and 
believed us when we explained that the 
mangling action of the wind had ren- 
dered all eleven bodies unsuitable for 
transportation outside. 

Indeed, I flatter myself that even in 
the midst of our distress, utter bewil- 
derment, and soul-clutching horror, we 
scarcely went beyond the truth in any 
specific instance. The tremendous 
significance lies in what we dared not 
tell; what I would not tell now but for 
the need of warning others off from 
nameless terrors. 

IT IS A FACT that the wind had 
wrought dreadful havoc. Whether all 
could have lived through it, even with- 
out the other thing, is gravely open to 
doubt. The storm, with its fury of 
madly driven ice particles, must have 
been beyond anything our expedition 
had encountered before. 

One aeroplane shelter — all, it seems, 
had been left in a far too flimsy and in- 
adequate state — was nearly pulverized ; 
and the derrick at the distant boring 
was entirely shaken to pieces. 

The exposed metal of the grounded 
planes and drilling machinery was 
bruised into a high polish, and two of 
the small tents were flattened despite 
their snow banking. Wooden surfaces 
left out in the blast were pitted and 
denuded of paint, and all signs of 
tracks in the snow were completely 
obliterated. 

It is also true that we found none 
of the archaean biological objects in a 



30 



ASTOUNDING STORIES 



condition to take outside as a whole. 
We did gather some minerals from a 
vast, tumbled pile, including several of 
the greenish soapstone fragments whose 
odd five-pointed rounding and faint 
patterns of grouped dots caused so 
many doubtful comparisons, and some 
fossil bones, among which were the 
most typical of the curiously injured 
specimens. 

None of the dogs survived, their hur- 
riedly built snow inclosure near the 
camp being almost wholly destroyed. 
The wind may have done that, though 
the greater breakage, on the side next 
the camp, which was not the windward 
one. suggests an outward leap or break 
of the frantic beasts themselves. 

All three sledges were gone, and we 
have tried to explain that the wind may 
have blown them off into the unknown. 
The drill and ice-melting machinery at 
the boring were too badly damaged to 
warrant salvage, so we used them to 
choke up that subtly disturbing gateway 
to the past which Lake had blasted. 

We likewise left at the camp the two 
most shaken up of the planes ; since our 
surviving party had only four real 
pilots — Sherman, Danforth, McTighe, 
and Ropes — in all, with Danforth in a 
poor nervous shape to navigate. We 
brought back all the books, scientific 
equipment, and other incidentals we 
could find, though much was rather 
unaccountably blown away. Spare tents 
and furs were either missing or badly 
out of condition. 

It was approximately four p. m., after 
wide plane cruising had forced us to 
give Gedney up for lost, that we sent 
our guarded message to the Arkharn for 
relaying; and I think we did well to 
keep it as calm and noncommittal as we 
succeeded in doing. 

The most we said about agitation con- 
cerned our dogs, whose frantic uneasi- 
ness near the biological specimens was 
to be expected from poor Lake’s 



accounts. We did not mention, I think, 
their display of the same uneasiness 
when sniffing around the queer greenish 
soapstones and certain other objects in 
the disordered region — objects including 
scientific instruments, aeroplanes, and 
machinery, both at the camp and at the 
boring, whose parts had been loosened, 
moved, or otherwise tampered with by 
winds that must have harbored singular 
curiosity and investigativeness. 

About the fourteen biological speci- 
mens we were pardonably indefinite. 
We said that the only ones we dis- 
covered were damaged, but that enough 
was left of them to prove Lake's" 
description wholly and impressively 
accurate. It was hard work keeping 
our personal emotions out of this matter 
— and we did not mention numbers or 
say exactly how we had found those 
which we did find. We had by that time 
agreed not to transmit anything sug- 
gesting madness on the part of Lake’s 
men, and it surely looked like madness 
to find six imperfect monstrosities care- 
fully buried upright in nine-foot snow 
graves under five-pointed mounds 
punched over with groups of dots in 
patterns exactly like those on the queer 
greenish soapstones dug up from Meso- 
zoic or Tertiary times. The eight per- 
fect specimens mentioned by Lake 
seemed to have been completely blown 
away. 

WE WERE CAREFUL, too, about 
the public’s general peace of mind ; 
hence Danforth and I said little about 
that frightful trip over the mountains 
the next day. It was the fact that only 
a radically lightened plane could pos- 
sibly cross a range of such height which 
mercifully limited that scouting tour to 
the two of us. 

On our return at one a. m., Danforth 
was close to hysterics, but kept an 
admirably stiff upper lip. It took no 
persuasion to make him promise not to 
show our sketches and the other things 



AT THE MOUNTAINS OF MADNESS 



31 



we brought away in our pockets, not to 
say anything more to the others than, 
what we had agreed to relay outside, 
and to hide our camera films for pri- 
vate development later on ; so that part 
of my present story will be as new to 
Pabodie, McTighe, Ropes, Sherman, 
and the rest as it will be to that world 
in general. Indeed — Danforth is closer 
mouthed than I : for he saw, or thinks 
he saw, one thing he will not tell even 
me. 

As all know, our report included a 
tale of a hard ascent — a confirmation 
of Lake’s opinion that the great peaks 
are of archaean slate and other very 
primal crumpled strata unchanged since 
at least middle Comanchian time, a 
conventional comment on the regularity 
of the clinging cube and rampart for- 
mations, a decision that the cave mouths 
indicate dissolved calcareous veins, a 
conjecture that certain slopes and passes 
would permit of the scaling and cross- 
ing of the entire range by seasoned 
mountaineers, and a remark that the 
mysterious other side holds a lofty and 
immense superplateau as ancient and 
unchanging as the mountains themselves 
— twenty thousand feet in elevation, 
with grotesque rock formations pro- 
truding through a thin glacial layer and 
with low gradual foothills between the 
general plateau surface and the sheer 
precipices of the highest peaks. 

This body of data is in every respect 
true so far as it goes, and it completely 
satisfied the men at the camp. We laid 
our absence of sixteen hours — a longer 
time than our announced flying, landing, 
reconnoitering, and rock-collecting pro- 
gram called for — to a long mythical 
spell of adverse wind conditions, and 
told truly of our landing on the farther 
foothills. 

Fortunately our tale sounded realistic 
and prosaic enough not to tempt any of 
the others into emulating our flight. 
Had any tried to do that, I would have 



used every ounce of my persuasion to 
stop them — and I do not know what 
Danforth would have done. 

While we were gone, Pabodie, Sher- 
man, Ropes, McTighe, and Williamson 
had worked like beavers over Lake’s 
two best planes, fitting them again for 
use, despite the altogether unaccountable 
juggling of their operative mechanism. 

We decided to load all the planes the 
next morning and start back for our 
old base as soon as possible. Even 
though indirect, that was the safest way 
to work toward McMurdo Sound ; for 
a straight-line flight across the most 
utterly unknown stretches of the aeon- 
dead continent would involve many 
additional hazards. 

Further exploration was hardly fea- 
sible in view of our tragic decimation 
and the ruin of our drilling machinery. 
The doubts and horrors around us — 
which we did not reveal — made us wish 
only to escape from this austral world 
of desolation and brooding madness as 
swiftly as we could. 

AS the public knows, our return to 
the world was accomplished without 
further disasters. All planes reached 
the old base on the evening of the next 
day — January 27th — after a swift non- 
stop flight; and on the 28th we made 
McMurdo Sound in two laps, the one 
pause being very brief, and occasioned 
by a faulty rudder, in the furious wind 
over the ice shelf after we had cleared 
the great plateau. 

In five days more, the Arkliam and 
Miskatonic, with all hands and equip- 
ment on board, were shaking clear of 
the thickening field ice and working up 
Ross Sea, with the mocking mountains 
of Victoria Land looming westward 
against a troubled antarctic sky and 
twisting the wind’s wails into a wide- 
ranged musical piping which chilled my 
soul to the quick. 

Less than a fortnight later we left 



32 



ASTOUNDING STORIES 



the last hint of polar land behind us 
and thanked heaven that we were cleat 
of a haunted, accursed realm where life 
and death, space and time, have made 
black and blasphemous alliances in the 
unknown epochs since matter first 
writhed and swam on the planet’s 
scarce-cooled crust. 

Since our return we have all con- 
stantly worked to discourage antarctic 
exploration, and have kept certain 
doubts and guesses to ourselves with 
splendid unity and faithfulness. Even 
young Danforth, with his nervous 
breakdown, has not flinched or babbled 
to his doctors. 

Indeed, as I have said, there is one 
thing he thinks he alone saw which he 
will not tell even me, though I think it 
would help his psychological state if he 
would consent to do so. It might ex- 
plain and relieve much, though perhaps 
the tiling was no more than the delusive 
aftermath of an earlier shock. That 
is the impression I gather after those 
rare, irresponsible moments when he 
whispers disjointed things to me — 
things which he repudiates vehemently 
as soon as he gets a grip on himself 
again. 

It will lie hard work deterring others 
from the great white south, and some 
of our efforts may directly harm our 



cause by drawing inquiring notice. We 
might have known from the first that 
human curiosity is undying, and that 
the results we announced would be 
enough to spur others ahead on the 
same age-long pursuit of the unknown. 

Lake’s reports of those biological 
monstrosities had aroused naturalists 
and palaeontologists to the highest pitch, 
though we were sensible enough not to 
show the detached parts we had taken 
from the actual buried specimens, or our 
photographs of those specimens as they 
were found. We also refrained from 
showing the more puzzling of the 
scarred bones and greenish soapstones ; 
while Danforth and I have closely- 
guarded the pictures we took or drew 
on the superplateau across the range, 
and the crumpled things we smoothed, 
studied in terror, and brought away in 
our pockets. 

But now that Starkweather-Moore 
party is organizing, and with a 
thoroughness far beyond anything our 
outfit attempted — if not dissuaded, they 
will get to the innermost nucleus of the 
antarctic and melt and bore till they 
bring up that which we know may end 
the world. So I must break through 
all reticences at last — even about that 
ultimate, nameless thing beyond the 
mountains of madness. 



To be Continued. 



tomb* 





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AST-2 




Morris lay on the table 
— thinking — thinking 
— of just two things. 



The Seeing Blindness 



by J. Earle Wycoff 



S LEEP was impossible. And yet he 
felt weary, as though with the age 
of centuries. His eyes were hot 
coals in their sockets; the impotent lids 
became grained and coarse as he blinked 
them uselessly over his aching eyeballs. 

AST— 3 



Again and again he went over, in his 
mind, the events leading up to what he 
felt was the final catastrophe. They 
were useless thoughts — good only to 
send whirling in a dazzling circle, that 
this misery of light might be filled with 




34 



ASTOUNDING STORIES 



something, that there might be some 
basis for time — for sanity 

“I HAVE devoted my life,” said Dr. 
Merton to the young man seated oppo- 
site him, “to a study of eyes. Not 
merely the human eye, for its vision 
is much more limited than that of many 
animals and birds — and' in other cases 

more powerful ” 

“Yes. I know. Professor Hardin 
told me what you had done, and what 
you wanted.” The youth leaned for- 
ward, and there was a spark of impa- 
tience in his dark eyes. 

Dr. Merton smiled. “You are impa- 
tient, I see. Well, so am I, for that 
matter. The next few hours will tell 
whether I am to be dubbed a fool, or 
praised as a genius.” 

“But I thought — ” 

“No one is certain of anything, until 
it has been tried.” The doctor turned, 
and going to a cupboard at one side of 
his office, opened the door and took from 
the top shelf a small, square, green bot- 
tle. It was almost filled with a shadowy 
liquid that glimmered strangely through 
the sides of the bottle as the light fell 
upon it. 

Merton turned to the other and ran 
his hand nervously through his bristly 
gray hair. “Here is the result of my 
life’s work, Morris. You know its pur- 
pose ?” 

Morris nodded his dark head quickly. 
“Yes. He said you called it ‘light drops’ 
— that it enabled one to see through 
things. It’s like the X ray, I suppose.” 
“Hardin should not have been so posi- 
tive! But never mind. It is like the 
X ray, perhaps, but much more wonder- 
ful, I hope. For after this solution has 
taken effect in your eyes, you will be 
able to see through things, as you put it, 
but see them in their natural color ! 
Think of being able to watch the organs 
of the body function naturally, with no 
outside influences affecting them in any 
way. Can’t you see what it would mean 



in diagnosis, in operations, in setting 
fractures? Its possibilities are un- 
limited !” The doctor’s blue eyes flashed 
with youthful enthusiasm. 

Morris leaned forward, intensely. 
“How soon ” 

“I am ready whenever you are. To 
make sure that there is no misunder- 
standing, you will sign this paper, re- 
leasing me from all responsibility in 
case of mishap; and I will give you this 
check for $5,000.” 

The youth took the paper and scrib- 
bled his name hastily. “I’m willing to 
take a chance. I need the money, and 
besides, to be able to see everything!” 

“I am sure you need not be afraid. 
Also, I am sure from my experiments 
on animals, that normal sight will return 
within twenty-four hours, leaving no 
bad effects. But, of course, rabbits 
can’t talk — that’s why I cannot be sure 
how it works — or that it does work.” 
The doctor had assumed his lecture 
voice again. 

“I’m ready. Let’s go !” 

“There’s just one thing more. You 
must answer as promptly as you can, 
any questions I ask you while your eyes 
are under the effect of the light drops ; 
and also tell me any other sensations you 
have. A great deal depends upon this 
experiment, and I want it to be as de- 
tailed and complete as possible.” The 
doctor was serious and grave. 

“Yes, sir. Anything you say!” Mor- 
ris was clearly impatient to get started. 

“Very well. Just take off your coat 
and lie down on the examination table, 
here.” 

Morris followed the doctor’s orders, 
while Merton filled a dropper from the 
square, green bottle. 

RALPH MORRIS lay on the op- 
erating table, thinking of just two things 
while the doctor bent over him, with 
the solution ready. What couldn’t he 
do with $5,000! He would be the first 
man to have X ray eyes! 



THE SEEING BLINDNESS 



35 



The drops smarted his eyes a little, 
and he blinked the lids. 

“Just close your eyes for a while,” the 
doctor told him. “You might leave 
them closed until I tell you to open 
them !” 

He did as the doctor requested. 
Presently it seemed as if there was a 
grayness growing before him — a sort of 
hazy, gray dusk. 

“It’s starting to work,” he told Mer- 
ton. “Everything’s sort of gray. It's 
getting lighter, too.” 

“Good ! Keep your eyes closed for 
just a moment more. Undoubtedly, 

when you open them, the solution will 
have taken full effect. Perhaps you 

will be able to see into the next room!” 

Morris wondered what room was next 
to the laboratory. Some of his experi- 
ences might prove most interesting! 

“It’s much lighter, "doctor. Shall I 
open my eyes, now?” 

“Yes — I think so — now!” 

Morris raised his eyelids and looked 
strangely about. 

“Can — can you see — me?” Dr. Mer- 
ton’s voice was hoarse with excitement. 

“Why, no. I can’t.” Morris’s face 
held a puzzled expression. “And every- 
thing is getting lighter. It’s almost 
white. It’s hurting, my eyes!” He 
turned perplexedly toward the doctor, 
who was standing in front of a west 
window, through which the afternoon 
sunlight was streaming. 

Suddenly he clapped his hands over 
his eyes and screamed: “The sun ! My 
Lord ! The sun— and I can’t shut it 
out!” 

The doctor grasped Morris’ arm and 
whirled him away from the window. 
Morris stood there, shuddering and star- 
ing blankly at the wall before him. 

“Everything’s white, doctor,” he 
shouted after a pause. Shouted, as 
though afraid Merton, unseen, could not 
hear him. “It’s blinding. The sun, just 
then, before you turned me away, was 
like a knife stuck in my eyes. I can 



see a whole lot of lights in front of me 
now, a long way off. They’re iust 
points of light. And I can’t shut them 
out. Even my arm over my eyes 
doesn’t shut them out!” 

“There are lights in front of you, 
now? You’re sure they’re not just 
spots, from your looking at the sun?” 
“But if I turn my head I see lights, 
too — different ones. And then, when I 
look back, these are always here, just 
the same!” 

The doctor was puzzled. “I can’t 

understand. I had always thought ” 

and then he suddenly paled, and sweat 
broke out on his forehead in huge, cold 
drops. 

“Tell me! You can see nothing? No 
matter in which direction you turn? 
Can you see no shadows even?” 

“There’s nothing — nothing but lights 
— and the sun — and that awful white- 
ness that’s all around me. Just as 
though I were in the middle of a glar- 
ing white ocean!” 

Dr. Merton walked unsteadily toward 
a chair and sat down, heavily. He spoke 
more to himself, than to Morris. “All 
for nothing! Dear Lord! All my life 
for nothing!” his voice rose in a frenzy. 

Morris turned to the place from which 
the doctor’s voice seemed to come. 
“What do you mean? Isn’t it going to 
work?” He was bewildered. “Why do 
I see the sun, if it won't work?” 

“It’s working! That’s the trouble. 
Oh, what a fool I’ve been, all these 
years, never to think of it!” 

“What are you talking about? Can’t 
you do anything? I can’t stand this 
light much longer!” 

“I don’t know. I don’t know.” There 
was an agony of doubt and disappoint- 
ment in the doctor’s voice. 

“Well, if ” 

“The — the animals I used in my ex- 
periments, as I said, seemed to regain 
their normal sight in about twenty- four 
hours — a day ” 



36 



ASTOUNDING STORIES 



“Don’t you have an — an antidote or 
something ?” 

“No — there’s nothing. Nothing but 
time.” 

“Maybe if you put some more of the 
stuff in my eyes, it would work like it’s 
supposed to.” Morris became openly 
cynical, thinking the experiment was a 
failure. 

“It’s working — it is working! Didn’t 
you hear me, fool ?” The doctor’s voice 
rose again. “You can see through 
things! You can see through every- 
thing! That’s why you can’t see any- 
thing !” 

“But I — I don’t understand.” 

“Listen! You thought— I thought — 
that you would be able to see, perhaps, 
through the wall of this room into the 
room beyond, just as though no wall 
separated them. Your sight would 
penetrate the wall, therefore, it would 
be invisible to you. What we didn’t 
stop to think of, was this: If we can 
see through a wall, why should you not 
be able to see through what was beyond 
that wall. If one thing was invisible, 
everything would be invisible !” 

“But the sun? And these lights? 
Why ” 

“You can see nothing that reflects 
light. That is the effect the solution 
lias on your eyes. But you can see 
points that radiate light. That’s why 
you see the sun. And the others are 
probably lights in factories and office 
buildings down in the city !” 

THE NEXT HOURS were the 
longest of Morris’ twenty-two years. 
All around him was that white, endless, 
timeless void. Night was worse, for 
the street lamps flared on, and it was 
impossible for him to turn away from 
them. They were on all sides. 

And the sun, as the earth turned and 
darkness fell upon the laboratory, did 



not disappear, but moved below him, 
glaring up from beneath his feet, 
through an invisible earth — blinding! 
It was ghastly, weird. 

He felt that his brain could not stand 
it, and he screamed and pounded the 
wall. And, strangely enough, he was 
calmed by the feel of the heavy, solid 
surface. 

He passed, finally, into sort of a — not 
.sleep, not a hypnotic trance — but some- 
thing, somewhere between the two. 
How long he sat this way, seeing noth- 
ing, yet feeling as though he were, him- 
self, a part of the vast, white nothing- 
ness that surrounded him, he knew not. 

He sensed Dr. Merton pacing the 
room, muttering to himself. He knew 
— and yet he did not actually remember 
— the doctor standing in front of him, 
pulling up his eyelids, asking him ques- 
tions to which he gave instantly forgot- 
ten answers. 

It seemed an eternity. And it was 
broken only when he realized that the 
whiteness was not so glaring, that 
gradually, so gradually he had been un- 
aware of its changing, it had become a 
pale-gray. 

Even as he snapped back into full 
consciousness, the gray became more of 
a twilight — a dusk that cooled his eyes 
and calmed his nerves into a peace he 
had thought he could never feel again. 

And, presently, through the dusk that 
shifted and changed before his eyes, he 
could make out the form of Dr. Merton, 
standing before his laboratory table, 
emptying into a small incinerator the 
contents of a small, green, square bottle. 
The liquid contents hissed up into a 
purple-tinged steam as they dripped 
onto the heated metal. 

There was a look in the doctor’s eyes, 
as of a man who has sacrificed his only 
child. 




Buried Moon 



by Raymond Z. 
GALLUN 



Could it be that his body, as well 
as his mind, was changing into 
that of a 



T OD CRAM knew that a change 
had come over him. Once, an 
indefinite time ago, he had 
found his surroundings terrifying to a 
degree that human consciousness could 
scarcely bear. Now he felt a curious 
kinship with them. It was not merely 



that he had become accustomed to his 
environment. The adjustment was 
more grotesque, and more disquietingly 
subtle than ever. He wondered, with- 
out alarm, whether he had gone insane. 

The texture of the stuff on which he 
sprawled was silky and adhesive, like 




38 



ASTOUNDING STORIES 



cobwebs. Something hairy and black 
and hideous scampered across his bare 
legs ; but he remained, for the most part, 
untroubled. Tom Cram could not rid 
himself of the odd impression that he 
was at home, and among friends. 

There was a dull ache in his head. 
His whole body burned with a fevered 
heat that somehow deadened the sting 
of the countless minute wounds that 
dotted his naked flesh. He stirred, and 
he knew by the cramped stiffness in his 
bones that he had been asleep. For a 
reason which he could not quite fathom, 
it seemed strange to him that sleep 
should be possible here. 

With a feeble movement he propped 
his head on his doubled forearms, and 
studied the place which had become his 
domicile. It was just as it had been 
before. The cavern was crudely cir- 
cular, and had evidently been excavated 
from the rusty, meteoric rock by arti- 
ficial means. 

The roof was very low — only a yard 
above his head as he lay prone. It bore 
countless tiny tool marks. A great 
rough-hewn pillar, at the center of the 
chamber a dozen feet away, supported 
it. Heaps of a flaky mineral, doubtless 
containing small quantities of a radio- 
active substance, were arranged above 
the floor. They shed a ghastly, blue- 
gray phosphorescence, which was the 
only light in this buried grotto. Here 
and there odd plants had found root. 

Tod Cram was conscious of that un- 
rest, though it was inconsistent with the 
puzzling calm that pervaded his aching 
brain and body. His eyes, rheumy and 
bloodshot in his cadaverous face, di- 
rected their questing gaze along the 
walls. He saw scores of tunnel mouths, 
many times too small to be entered by a 
man. In the shadowed depths of each, 
a cluster of eight reddish sparks glit- 
tered like hidden rubies. 

He knew that those gleaming specks 
of witch fire were other eyes, meeting 



his own stare watchfully, each cluster 
of them betraying the presence of an 
entity that possessed reasoning powers 
comparable with those of a man, but 
whose form and habits were utterly re- 
volting by human standards. 

That was the nucleus of Tod Cram’s 
unrest— he was among creatures whose 
presence should arouse nothing but re- 
vulsion and hatred in a human being; 
still he was at peace with them. Nor 
did he care what had happened, or what 
might still happen to himself. It was a 
strange situation, hinting at dark sci- 
ences beyond his comprehension. His 
mind had, for some reason, become un- 
naturally sluggish, so that be could not 
think clearly ; yet he was still able to 
perceive in this strange attitude toward 
the inhabitants of this place, a danger 
that he might do things which, under 
other circumstances, he would regret. 

In an effort to get a clearer view of 
things, Tod continued his visual investi- 
gations. None of the dominant species 
was in view now, for nothing but the 
glowing eyes of the watchers could be 
seen. Only an occasional slave creature, 
hairy, black, and many-legged, formed 
like its masters, but possessing little 
more than marvelous instinct to direct 
it in its complicated duties, scurried 
across the cavern. Tod Cram felt no 
interest in such momentary visitations. 

He looked at the blurred shadows, and 
at the trickling dew on the rough stone 
about him. His attention came to rest 
on the blunt-nosed mechanism lodged in 
the wall of the cavern with half its 
length protruding. It was the vehicle, 
the drill, which had brought him to this 
place. Sight of it reminded his slug- 
gish memory where he was. 

This was an underworld, buried be- 
tween the bed of the South Pacific two 
miles above, and the eternal fires of 
Earth, not such a great distance below. 
Somewhere to the west, a mile, perhaps, 
reared the half -submerged mountain 
whose summit was Sunset Island. 



BURIED MOON 



39 



WHAT WAS Sunset Island to him? 
Tod Cram’s brows puckered with un- 
natural effort. Oh, yes! It was the is- 
land to which he had come to conduct 
certain researches. Close to its shores 
was a great underwater crater the possi- 
ble origin of which had aroused so many 
weird speculations among scientists. 
With him on the venture had been kindly 
old Travers and Sandra. Sandra — 

whose beauty was like a golden flame, 
whom he had loved, and whom he had 
learned to hate 

Travers and he had assembled the drill 
on Sunset Island. They had tested its 
great rotating fangs, looking for possible 
flaws and weaknesses in the superhard- 
ened steel. They had inspected the huge 
chemical power plant, which would drive 
those fangs. They had speculated upon 
the dangers to be encountered in the ven- 
ture, and they had hoped for the best. 

Then he. Tod Cram, had entered the 
pilot compartment of the drill. Lying 
prone in its narrow, reeking interior, he 
had guided the fantastic vehicle down 
through the rocks of Sunset Island. 

Ejecting broken rubble in its wake, 
the machine had bored its way deep into 
the Earth, and out under the ocean bed. 
All had gone well until it had struck a 
lode of hard, meteoric alloy. The drill 
had continued to make progress there, 
but soon the drive shaft had become 
warped by the terrific strain. It had 
been evident that in a few minutes it 
would refuse to turn. Then the drill 
had burst its way through the wall of 
this cavern. Crippled as it now was, 
it could never make the journey back to 
the surface unless it was repaired. He 
had been trying to fix it — he and his 
friends. 

Tod Cram cursed, and shook his head 
violently, as if to jar his thoughts into a 
clearer semblance of coherence. The 
inhabitants of this region, his friends? 

The idea was persistent. Tod had 
only a blurred inkling of the reason 



why. It concerned an eerie mechanism 
which stood inside a crystal cage set 
against the great stone pillar. Except 
for its indefinable aura of un-Earthli- 
ness there was nothing very striking 
about it. Still, as he examined the 
thing now, it aroused in him a vague 
fear, stronger, but of the same quality 
as the fear provoked by a half-remem- 
bered nightmare. 

“Nothing but a shaft, a flywheel, and 
a lot of fancy gadgets !” he muttered in 
bewilderment. 

His description of the device was 
quite accurate. Its metal framework, 
which was perhaps ten inches high, sup- 
ported a slender spindle, or shaft, in a 
vertical position. Attached to the bot- 
tom of the spindle, after the fashion 
of a flywheel, was a heavy metal disk. 
At the upper end of the shaft, a large, 
many-faceted crystal was mounted. 
Metal points, supported by rods at- 
tached to the framework of the machine, 
flanked one side of the crystal in a 
concave arrangement, suggestive of the 
reflecting mirror of a searchlight. Wires, 
fine as hair, ran out of a large black- 
sphere, which must have contained 
some cryptic power supply, and con- 
nected with the rods that upheld the 
points. Projecting from one side of the 
sphere was a pair of horizontal plates, 
between which was a space of perhaps 
three inches. 

Inactive now, the machine looked 
quite harmless, but groping back 
through the fog of a strangely clouded 
memory, Tod Cram could recall times 
when it had been in motion. 

He remembered his arrival here. He 
remembered seeing the swarming hordes 
of the inhabitants, through a vision port 
in the drill. Presently they had dragged 
something heavy into the cavern. A 
queer compulsion had caused him to 
open his vehicle to admit them. They 
had rushed over him in a black wave. 
Their sharp claws had begun to cut 
his clothing from him. Their fangs 



40 



ASTOUNDING STORIES 



had jabbed into his flesh to taste his 
blood. He had blundered wildly out of 
the drill. He had fainted. 

WHEN consciousness had returned 
to him, he had seen the machine in 
operation. Impelled by some unknown 
force, the flywheel and spindle had been 
rotating. The great crystal at the spin- 
dle’s top had been spinning before Tod’s 
eyes. A rich, golden glow had burned 
in it — a glow which had somehow pene- 
trated into his brain, bringing him 
illusions of peace and comfort. He bad 
felt an alien personality dominating his 
thoughts and emotions, even bis point 
of view. There had been the beginning 
of the strange sense of kinship between 
himself and the inhabitants of this 
buried realm. And he had often been 
under the influence of that penetrating, 
compelling glow. 

It had caused dim visions, like echoes 
of a forgotten lore, to swarm inside his 
mind. Yet he had not been quite able 
to grasp those visions, for they had been 
too faint to perceive. Even ' now, 
though he had experienced them many 
times, they were still not quite within 
reach, though they had grown clearer. 

A great purpose lay back of them, he 
knew — an aspiration toward freedom 
from this prison world of tunnels and 
caverns beneath the sea. And he, Tod 
Cram, had been helping in the fulfill- 
ment of that aspiration. While under 
the spell of the golden rays from the 
spinning crystal, he had drawn diagrams 
on a silky fabric his friends had 
brought, endeavoring to show them how 
to make a new drive shaft for the drill. 
He had not been doing this for selfish 
motives, but for them, his people. 

That odd notion that he was one of 
them was still with him. All at once 
he grasped its significance, and saw how 
it had been brought about. Through 
the medium of the machine of the 
whirling crystal, they had planted the 
idea in his mind for their own purposes ! 



He looked down at his arms, scrutiniz- 
ing them minutely. They were scrawny, 
cadaverous things now, though once 
they had been massive and powerful. 
Tod Cram was aware that sickness and 
near starvation had emaciated them ; yet 
another interpretation of their condi- 
tion came into his head. Could it be 
that some weird alchemy was changing 
his body as well as his mind into that 

of a He checked the thought. 

knowing that it was mad, and without 
foundation in fact. Still, by some 
bizarre mental twist, he found himself 
half believing it. He laughed harshly, 
hysterically, and without humor. 

“I won’t let them make me do what 
they want me to do,” he muttered 
childishly. “Those devils can’t force 
me. From now on I’m hanging onto 
myself !” But his words were thick and 
blurred, and without real conviction. 
His will could not sustain the rebellion 
for more than a few seconds. 

He listened to the distant trickle of 
water, ominously suggestive of ever- 
pending catastrophe. The ocean above 
was seeping down through crevices in 
the rocks, to meet the molten interior 
of the Earth below. Steam, under tre- 
mendous pressure, was constantly being 
generated down there, making ever- 
present the dangers of earthquake, of 
flood, and of suffocation by volcanic 
gas. Even now Tod Cram could feel 
the faint vibration of distant Cyclopea.n 
forces. Yes, he would be glad when he 
and his people had won their way to 
the surface. 

Memories, fogged and distant, ob- 
truded themselves into his thoughts. 
Books. Experiments. The tall elms 
and old, gray buildings of a campus, 
under bright sunshine. Some one who 
had said that he possessed inventive 
ability. Old Travers who had helped 
him so much in his work. Old Travers 
who whistled through his teeth when he 
spoke. Sandra. Sandra, the beautiful 
— Mrs. Tod Cram 



BURIED MOON 



41 



He had brought her out of New 
York to Sunset Island. And there their 
love had turned bitter. His eternal 
tinkering and his endless speculations. 
Boredom. Sandra had hated it, and 
she had maddened him. He had beaten 
her once, just the day before he had left. 
But his thoughts of her were dim and 
impersonal now. For some reason he 
could not even picture her in his mind. 
Disinterested, he allowed his dazed 
faculties to rove on to other memories. 

He thought of the vast, submerged 
crater close to Sunset Island, and of 
the fascination of its riddle, which had 
inspired him to build the drill. A vague 
hunch had proved true beyond his wild- 
est fancies 

TOD CRAM’S rambling ruminations 
were brought to an abrupt end. There 
was a shifting of eye clusters in the 
tunnel mouths, where guardian entities 
stepped aside to admit a scurrying flood 
of the inhabitants. In a rush and a 
scramble they poured into the cavern, 
making a seething sound as their hairy 
bodies rubbed together. They were 
spiders/bigger than tarantulas, hideous 
beyond anything spawned on the upper 
crust of Earth; yet, in their grotesque 
forms, evolution, working through the 
ages, had implanted intellects equal to 
those of men, though perhaps of a 
somewhat different order. 

The creatures swarmed over Tod 
Cram, burying him completely. His 
only protest was a ragged gasp. A few 
individuals of the swarm nipped at his 
flesh, but most of the arachnids at- 
tempted no harm. He was a valued 
treasure to be taken care of ; for in him 
they saw the attainment of freedom, 
and perhaps a Nirvana of other flesh 
like his. Perhaps their impetuous rush 
was prompted only by a desire to touch 
him, that they might convince them- 
selves that he was real. 

The man received their demonstra- 
tion with only the faintest traces of a 



deadened revulsion. Presently the tide 
receded, and he saw the little stack of 
food which his visitors had brought him 
— globes of a sticky, grayish concoction, 
doubtless prepared especially for him 
by some theorizing arachnid scientist. 
Under other circumstances Tod Cram 
would have found it revolting, yet he 
downed it with apparent gusto, for 
there was nothing else. 

While he was eating, a bright metal 
object on the floor before him caught 
his eye. His friends had dragged it 
into the cavern from some hidden work- 
shop of theirs. It was a new drive 
shaft for the drill, made according to 
his diagrams 1 — a stout piece of meteoric 
steel, two feet long. At one end was 
a slender-flanged cone, intended to en- 
gage' the complicated clutch of the 
drill’s motor. Its tip was needle-sharp. 
Tod Cram was pleased to note that the 
job had been accomplished so well. 

Within .the crystal cage beside the 
oillar that supported the roof of the 
cavern, the mechanism of psychic 
powers had gone into operation. The 
flywheel, and the spindle on which the 
faceted crystal was mounted, had begun 
to turn. Swiftly the rotation became 
more rapid. The golden light, provoc- 
ative of visions, flared up in the spin- 
ning crystal. An arachnid nearly twice 
the size of its fellows, crouched between 
the two parallel plates projecting from 
the side of the black globe which was 
part of the machine, and stared fixedly 
at Tod Cram. 

Once more that cloudy terror was 
with him — that feeling that he would 
do something that he did not wish to 
do. He tried to turn his eyes away 
from that weird mechanism, but they 
refused to respond to his commands. 
And after a moment he was somehow 
glad that he had been forced to yield. 
An alien science had conquered him. 

He still was curious, though, how 
this inhuman miracle was brought 



42 



ASTOUNDING STORIES 



about. Was it simple hypnosis, or a 
combination of hypnosis with some- 
thing far more subtle and penetrating? 
Certainly the latter, since the former 
could scarcely have accomplished the 
results he had experienced. Was the 
principal acting force perhaps a kind 
of eerie compulsion exercised through 
the agency of telepathic waves enor- 
mously amplified by the whirling crystal 
and its auxiliary apparatus? Such 
must be the case. The monster 
arachnid between the plates was think- 
ing thoughts and directing them into 
Tod Cram’s mind. 

He could capture those thoughts 
more clearly now than ever before. It 
seemed as though a groove had been 
worn in his consciousness by frequent 
repetition of this grotesque ceremony, 
so that his mind was more receptive. 

First of all he found himself feeling 
more and more that his purposes and 
ambitions, even his identity, were one 
with those of the creatures that crowded 
around him. It was as though he 
crouched now, in council, as one of 
them. His sympathy for his own kind 
was completely smothered ; he even 
began to think of the man, Tod Cram, 
as an entity quite apart from himself. 

Conscious realization of his present 
surroundings faded, until he seemed to 
lie no longer in the cavern, but in some 
indefinite place far back in departed 
ages. 

Details grew sharper and clearer ; and 
presently it was as though he were ex- 
periencing some vivid daydream, im- 
planted in his mind by some arachnid 
intellect. 

HE SAW the bright stars and the 
black sky of airless space. A great 
gray-green sphere, mottled with clouds 
and continents and oceans, hung in the 
void. It was the planet Earth. Close 
to it, so close that it almost touched the 
Terrestrial atmosphere, was a tiny 



moon, circling its primary at vast speed. 
Tod Cram thought of that moon as 
an ancient homeland, and he knew that 
it was the birthplace of the arachnidian 
race — their moon. It was a scintillant 
globe, bright as a diamond, and perhaps 
a shade less than a mile in diameter. 

He seemed to approach it closer. 
The surface was of rough, amorphous 
crystal, devoid of either atmosphere or 
life. The gravity of the minute satellite 
was far too weak to retain an external 
blanket of gas. 

Tod Cram was puzzled for a mo- 
ment; then the secret of the moon’s 
habitability was revealed to him. The 
view shifted; he saw the interior be- 
neath the glassy outer shell. Here were 
great bubble cavities formed in the 
translucent coating of the satellite, by 
expanding steam and gas, during a re- 
mote time of creation. Here air and 
water were imprisoned. Here sunlight 
could penetrate, supporting growing 
plants. And here in these labyrinths 
the arachnids had built their civilization 
through uncounted millenniums. 

In a brief, chronological sequence he 
saw their culture, and their scientific 
triumphs, crude but fairly advanced. 

Then he sensed the inexorable 
promise of calamity. The tremendous 
tidal drag of the Earth was tugging at 
the little world, slowing it in its orbit. 
Very soon it would tumble from space 
to embed itself in its mother sphere. 

Cram saw preparations for a hurried 
exodus, to be made by a carefully 
selected group of colonists who would 
try to land on Earth, and attempt to 
establish the race there. Tod saw crude 
cannons whose muzzles were thrust up 
through the shell of their moon. He 
saw projectiles, loaded with passengers 
and their supplies, being made ready for 
the short leap to the Terrestrial at- 
mosphere. He envisioned flares of red 
flame in the darkness, as the charges 
of gunpowder in the cannons exploded, 
sending the missiles on their way. Lit- 



BURIED MOON 



43 



tie force was necessary to tear them 
from the clutch of the satellite’s feeble 
gravity. He saw the shells flash out 
across space, and he saw the floss 
parachutes unfurl from them as they 
struck the Earthly atmosphere, lower- 
ing them gently toward the ground — — 

It had been a glorious effort. But 
except for faint echo which Tod Cram 
knew about from his experience in the 
world of men, it had failed. There 
was no arachnid civilization on the 
surface of the Earth. There were only 
spiders, whose instinctive ingenuity in 
constructing their webs and nests, be- 
trayed an intelligent shadow in their 
ancient ancestry. There had been a 
slip in the great plan for colonizing 
the Earth. No one would ever learn 
its nature. 

However, there had been another less 
popular, less conspicuous attempt to 
escape extinction. In the satellite’s core 
of meteoric iron. Tod Cram envisioned 
arachnids hollowing out chambers and 
passages, storing supplies, and prepar- 
ing silken cradles to deaden the awful 
force of the shock that was to come. 
This plan was not as hopeful of success 
as the other attempt ; but it took less 
time and effort, and many more refu- 
gees could be accommodated. 

As though he were one of those 
grotesque adventurers of eons past, Tod 
Cram saw the entrance to the retreat 
being sealed. He saw the darkness of 
the vaults and tunnels, relieved only by 
the glow of phosphorescent fungi. And 
he knew that the final plunge of the 
doomed satellite was not far off. 

HE FELT a jerking motion as the 
little planet wavered from its orbit and 
began its long fall. He sensed the 
rubbery thud of its collision with the 
atmosphere, and the soughing vibration 
as it tore downward. The impressions 
ended with an abruptness that must 
have represented the crash. The one- 
time moon had ripped through the 



waters of the Pacific, and had pene- 
trated deep into its bed. 

Then the telepathic impressions, com- 
ing to Tod Cram, pictured the reawak- 
ening — the heat, the thick gloom, com- 
plete except for the fading glimmer of 
glowing fungi — the hundreds of lifeless 
bodies of those who had succumbed to 
the concussion. 

Next was the struggle to live here in 
the depths. The gradual waning of food 
supplies. The futility of efforts to 
escape, with the sea above. Starvation. 
The digging of tunnels and passages, ex- 
tending out of the remains of tire buried 
moon, and into tire crust of the Earth. 
The discovery of the radioactive mineral 
that gave light, and made the growth of 
food plants possible here. A gradual 
reestablishment of the old order, con- 
stantly menaced by natural dangers — 
earthquake, heat, volcanic gases, and 
flood — and the eternal fight to ward 
those dangers off. Periodic attempts to 
tunnel to the surface and freedom, 
checkmated always by the seeping, dan- 
gerous waters of the ocean. Progress, 
scientific and intellectual. And, finally 
— this. 

Tod Cram’s controlled dream ended. 
But of what vestiges of humanness his 
mind had possessed, all seemed to have 
been wiped out, except a few useful 
memories. Among them were clear im- 
pressions of the position of Sunset 
Island, and of the structure of the drill. 
The shell of the subterranean vehicle 
could be sealed, so that its occupants 
would not be in danger from either 
water or poisonous vapors. 

And Tod remembered the taste of 
human blood, not realizing that the 
thought had originated, not in his own 
brain, but in the mind of the arachnid 
who controlled the mechanism of the 
spinning crystal, and who had doubtless 
been among those who had tasted the 
vital fluid in his veins. 

Awkwardly Cram lurched to his 



44 



ASTOUNDING STORIES 



feet, impelled by impulses not quite his 
own. His palms rested on the silky 
substance that covered the floor. The 
ceiling was too low for him to stand 
erect, and his movements were curi- 
ously unlike those of a man. Rather, 
they resembled those of a great, clumsy 
spider, seeking to use limbs and organs 
which it did not possess. 

His blood-rimmed eyes stared search- 
ingly about. The cavern was clearly 
visible to^him now — the drill protruding 
from the wall, the hordes of his con- 
freres, expectantly motionless, the weird 
mind machine, its glowing crystal spin- 
ning crazily, sending out the mysterious 
waves that exercised their eerie com- 
pulsion upon him. 

Tod Cram wavered toward the drive 
shaft that the arachnids had made. He 
picked it up and examined it carefully, 
taking special note of the flanged cone, 
tapered to a needle point, at one of its 
extremities. As far as he could tell 
by visual inspection, the workmanship 
was as good as any which a human 
machinist could have achieved. 

He moved toward the drill, and with 
fumbling fingers opened the curved door 
on its upper surface. Weakly lie swung 
himself inside, and groped for tools. 
The diameter of the torpedolike vehicle 
was little more than a yard, but with 
his head bent down he was completely 
hidden by its sides. Yet the compelling 
waves from the mind machine continued 
to exert their influence over him. un- 
impeded by shielding metal. 

Tod’s brain was full of plans. It 
would be easy to get out of here with 
the drill, now that a path had been 
broken through the surrounding lode 
of meteoric alloy by his previous pas- 
sage. He could take maybe a hundred 
of his friends to the surface in one trip. 
Perhaps the others could contrive to 
construct some kind of permanent tun- 
nel in his wake But the first 

hundred colonists would be enough for 
a start. They could bring the mind 



apparatus to the surface with them. 
They could build another, larger ap- 
paratus — 

The first vague hint of human puz- 
zlement returned to Tod Cram at that 
final thought. It made him remember 
that he himself was a victim of 
arachnid science. The spell that had 
been cast over him was not quite com- 
plete enough to prevent him from 
remembering. Still, he went on with 
his work. Wrenches scraped and rat- 
tled as he prepared to insert the drive 
shaft into place. 

AND THEN, between two inter- 
secting braces of metal beneath him, he 
saw a rectangle of stiff white paper. 
His fingers flicked it over. On the 
other side was a picture — his wife, 
Sandra, smiling calmly. He must have 
dropped it from the pocket of the 
jacket that the arachnids had torn from 
him. It was an cld jacket which he 
had not worn for months before the 
adventure began, before there had been 
any serious trouble between Sandra 
and himself. 

The vivid details of that photograph 
did things to Tod Cram. Since the first 
time that the mind machine had worked 
its insidious magic upon him, his wife 
had been a fading dream which had 
grown increasingly dim until, up to a 
moment ago, it had been completely 
blotted from his consciousness. 

Even before this latest demonstration 
of arachnid psychoscience, he had been 
unable to visualize her in his thoughts. 
But now she was real before his eyes — 
so real that that calm and faintly mock- 
ing smile of hers made him angry. He 
had learned to hate that smile. But 
back of his hatred, now, there was a 
paradoxical sweetness. 

Impelled by the unexpected contact 
with the dead past, which the picture 
afforded, old memories came back to 
Tod Cram — memories of which he had 
lost even the shadow. And the friendly 



BURIED MOON 



45 



warmth of them awoke in him a spark 
of saving fear. 

For a fleeting moment Tod Cram was 
once more a human being, for his mind 
had fallen out of tune with the subtle 
telepathic waves that impinged upon it. 

The reprieve could not last long. 
Even now he could feel the surge of 
compelling power gripping his muscles, 
his nerves, and the very essence of his 
being, forcing them back toward obedi- 
ence. 

But during that passing flash of free- 
dom, his mind worked with lightning 
rapidity. Old human loyalties were 
resurrected — Sandra whom he had 
loved, old Travers who had taught him 
so much. He thought of rambles along 
sunlit hillsides, and of gay parties he 
had attended, back in the States. 

The States? The nations of men 
might cease to be if the arachnids had 
their way. No one could tell how far 
they might go with the insidious knowl- 
edge they possessed. First, Sunset Is- 
land with its few, scattered inhabitants. 
Then? In a few years they might rule 
the Earth! 

Somehow, some way, he must find a 
means to defeat their purpose. There 
was only one such means open to him, 
and he took advantage of it without 
hesitation. Turning the needle-pointed 
cone of the drive shaft against his chest, 
he threw himself forward with all his 
might. There was a clank of metal, and 
the sharp point bit through his flesh 
and tore deep, into his lungs. The pain 
was like an explosion of vivid fire. 
Blood began to flow from the wound, 
and a rattle came into his breathing. 
Darkness was closing in around him — 
the darkness of death. Tod Cram knew 
that he had accomplished his purpose. 

Without him the inhabitants of this 
underworld could hope for no immedi- 
ate escape from their prison. The drill 
was the product of a science alien to 
them. They had not the strength to 



work its controls, or to crank its huge 
chemical motor, the enigma of whose 
function might have baffled even a 
human scientist for months. Before 
they could master all the intricacies of 
the drill, it would become rusted and 
useless in the damp, corrosive air, its 
secrets hidden from them. 

Travers probably would build another 
drill, and attempt to reach this place in 
it; but Tod Cram could do nothing to 
lessen the dangers the old man would 
face on his arrival here. Perhaps 
Travers would be lucky. Perhaps, re- 
membering the disappearance of his 
coworker, he would take careful pre- 
cautions which might save him. And 
even if the arachnids did capture him, 
it was unlikely that the frail old fellow 
would live long enough in this hellish 
place to aid them much. Tod Cram 
knew that he had done his best. 

For a few seconds the waves from the 
mind machine reasserted themselves. 
Tod was furious at the insane impulse 
that had caused him to do what he had 
just done. Spidery bodies were running 
over his flesh. They were daubing his 
wound with a silky exudation from their 
spinnerets, in the hope of stanching the 
flow of blood. They were his friends, 
his real friends. Why had he treated 
them so? 

The impression was fleeting. As the 
vital fluid in him ebbed away, Cram’s 
mind somehow became clearer, and his 
view more sane. 

Arachnid fangs were biting him 
vengefully now, because of the trick he 
had played. But within Tod Cram 
there awoke a strange new tolerance. He 
saw the spider folk as they really were — 
a fighting race, only trying to better their 
position, and that of their offspring, as 
men would do. He thought of the 
eternal, natural conflict of one form of 
life against another. Brutal, yet per- 
haps there was justice in it. It didn’t 
really matter, of course. Nothing mat- 
tered Sandra 




DEATH CLOUD 



It was a battle to the death, while death more cruel — 
but just as sure — seeped in all around them 



A tale of a world under glass — and 
under a fear which had been inherited 

by David R. Daniels 



T HE SKY showed poisonous 
green-yellow in color, and the 
little flier which zoomed through 
it, low above the Earth, was hidden now 
and then by sluggish wisps of cloud. 
The topography was dreary ; it was like 
the wreck of a world in the process of 
rejuvenation. 

Remains of long-dead tree trunks lay 
here and there, apparently half petrified, 
while straggling plants of strange hue 
were forcing their way up through 
them. At a little distance was a thicker 
growth, though it, too, was of a strange 
color — as though the poison of the sky 
had entered into these plants and 
changed them from the brown and 
sparkling green which they should be. 

But there was no sign that any mov- 
ing animal lived or had ever lived in 
this waste, except for the flier. 

It was a dull color, and streamlined 
to the highest degree. The inclosed 
cabin between its stubby, back-curving 
wings was small, though comfortable 
enough for the lone human being who 
occupied it. 

He sat tense and unmoving, his face 
almost hawklike as he stared straight 
ahead. Yet, while he flew as though all 
the devils in hell were upon his heels, he 
still had time to envy the straggling 
plants beneath him. If his people could 
endure the gas, he thought, then he 
would never have been flying on this 
mission. 

For an hour he sat, his flier straining 
ahead with a steady, blasting roar. 

Then, finally, far ahead, appeared a 
great dome. It was enormous ; one 
could see that even from this distance. 
It seemed to be made entirely from 



some transparent substance, since it 
gleamed like glass under the yellowish 
sky. 

As though the flier were making one 
supreme effort, its roar deepened a note. 
It dropped low, until to Gar Nel, in the 
pilot seat, the ground was a hazy blur. 
Then, when the great sweeping curve 
of the dome was only a little distance 
ahead, the flier’s speed suddenly de- 
creased as it climbed upward, to drop in 
a curving sweep toward an air lock. 

Had those inside recognized him, Gar 
Nel wondered? He hoped so, since the 
quicker the air lock opened, the better 
it would be for all of them. 

They had. 

Even as the flier swooped, a great 
section of the transparent stuff slid a«ide 
to reveal a compartment into which the 
ship could drop with room to spare. 

Gar Nel landed, cursing the slowness 
with which the section overhead slid 
back into place, and the poisonous vapor 
was pumped from the, lock. Finally, 
however, it was all accomplished, and 
the man leaped from the cabin. 

Leaving the ship in the lock, he dis- 
appeared through a doorway leading 
into the interior of the dome. He was 
large, strong-thewed beneath the brief- 
ness of his flying togs.* 

INSIDE the sheltering dome all was 
very different. The air was clean and 
sweet, with the transparent roof’s sweep 
so lofty that it seemed to take on a blue- 
ness when one looked upward. Grass 
and other, plants of familiar green were 
planted so that they formed quaint de- 
signs between the occasional buildings, 
when one looked down on them from the 
height of an air-lock opening. 



48 



ASTOUNDING STORIES 



Animals dotted the spread ; dogs, cows 
and horses, and even sheep were recog- 
nizable. There were people, too, though 
not many, it seemed. All those within 
range of Gar Nel’s vision were looking 
up at him. 

He waved. Some of his excitement 
must have been manifest, since the peo- 
ple beneath him hurried toward the 
landing of the flights of stairs down 
which he had started, almost at a run. 

One young woman led them all — a 
lithe-limbed girl with a form like a 
Greek goddess, and a face lovelier than 
any goddess’ ever was. She reached the 
platform just before Gar Nel did, and 
as she looked up at his strained face his 
anxiety was mirrored in her eyes. 

“What is it?” she asked, though down 
inside of her she knew. “Naraval?” 

He nodded. “I was barely able to get 
away,” he said, speaking so fast that his 
words tumbled over each other in their 
efforts to escape. “A fleet left this 
morning, headed in this direction. I 
hadn’t got there yet, and I turned back 
ahead of them. War ! The only reason 
I beat them was because my ship wasn’t 
so heavy. But there isn’t much time; 
they’ll be here before long. I’m going 
to get my guns. Tell the rest.” And 
he turned back to ascend the stairs. 

The girl ran after him, stopped him. 
“And you,” her words showed deep 
concern ; “what will the others say ?” 

“I know,” he replied ; “but one flier 
now is better than three after we can 
see the enemy.” He searched her face. 
“Is something else wrong?” 

She nodded, tears in her voice as she 
spoke. “Grandfather. He was up in- 
specting the ray projectors — near the 
ground, coming down, he slipped 1 and 
fell.” 

“Fell ! Is he badly hurt ?” 

“Yes; still unconscious. He may 
never wake up again. Oh, Gar Nel, 
with you leaving there’s no one now 

” And she threw herself, sobbing, 

into his arms. 



He stood for a minute, unspeaking. 
Finally he disengaged her hands, and, 
lifting her chin, stepped back so he 
could look into her face. “There, there, 
Loala,” he comforted softly. “It’s hard; 
this makes it harder, but I have to go. 
Now smile for me, once.” 

Obediently she managed a wan smile, 
tears still glistening on her pale face. 
“You’ll come back?” she pleaded. 
“Come back even if the dome’s broken, 
and ” 

“Don't!” he said huskily. “I’ll come. 
And you wait with Rael ; stay with him 
no matter what happens, so I’ll be able 
to find you.” 

II. 

A SCIENTIST of the latter-day 
world of the thirteenth century had first 
noticed the cloud in space. Though it 
gave no light of its own it was so dose 
that the sun illumined it faintly. 

“Hmm,” he told himself, “better 
check that. It’s right in our path, and 
there’s something unwholesome-looking 
about it.” 

He was right. Far huger than Earth's 
orbit, it lay directly at a point where 
the moving Sun, with its retinue of 
planets, would sweep into it ; and as the 
man trained his instruments upon it he 
found an unaccountable fear tugging at 
the edge of his consciousness. Even 
that fear, nevertheless, did not tell him 
just what the danger was. He thought 
that perhaps the cloud was a blanket of 
dark particles which, after entering the 
Solar System, would dim the Sun’s light 
and cause a glacial age like those during 
the early history of Earth. 

By means of his instruments he 
learned that the cloud was composed 
almost wholly of elements of the halogen 
group — flourine, chlorine, bromide, and 
iodine — with chlorine by far predomi- 
nating. And this element, in its freer 
state, is very inimical to life as we 
know it. 

War history for the past thousand 

AST— 3 



DEATH CLOUD 



49 



years had been made more horrible be- 
cause of the use to which man had put 
chlorine gas. When breathed by ani- 
mals it attacks the respiratory tract, pro- 
ducing symptoms similar to pneumonia. 

For a time the scientist — Karvel, his 
name was — hesitated to tell the world of 
his discovery. Then others saw the 
cloud, and the news could not be kept 
a secret any longer. Besides, if the 
race intended to make any effort to save 
itself, the more time it had for prepara- 
tion the better. 

Speculation ran rife. Some claimed 
that the cloud was too thin to do any 
one harm — though they should have 
known better from the way it shut off 
the light of the stars behind it. Others 
said that the Sun’s heat would disperse 
it and that what little of the gases did 
find their way into the atmosphere of 
the different worlds would in no sense 
be a menace. 

But a third group, led by Karvel, was 
more pessimistic. “It’s Armageddon,” 
he claimed ; and as time passed it began 
to look as though he were right. 

But the gas cloud did not seem at all 
likely . to disperse, and those who 
watched it found that it was quite dense. 
Since it was so dense, and since, before 
the Sun’s attraction had affected it 
greatly, it seemed to be spinning slowly 
in upon itself, some scientists thought 
that.it was in the midst of a reaction 
which, left unhindered, would finally 
have transformed it into a star. As far 
as general appearances went it resem- 
bled some planetary nebula very much 
indeed. 

Most people wished that it had been 
left to itself, and said so; but Karvel 
made the most salient remark of all : 
“Instead of watching the chloro-cloud,” 
he said — for thus it was called from the 
beginning — “we had better be getting 
down to business so that we can still be 
watching it ten years from now.” 

And the sect he led, for the most part 

AST-4 



scientists and their families, realized 
that the time for action was very short. 

Migration was out of the question. 
In spite of its ingenuity, the race had 
never succeeded in leaving the worlds of 
the Sun, and there was no planet in the 
Solar System which would be any better 
off than Earth. Also, a century or two 
previous to this, a few covered cities had 
been built on the twilight region of 
Mercury, and while most people had 
never cared to live in such places, it was 
known that cities of the sort were not 
impossible on Earth. It was only a 
question of time. 

KARVEL’S GROUP set to work 
immediately and with all haste. Great 
engines roared till the ground trembled ; 
mighty frameworks began to rear iheir 
heads. Shell-like, transparent hemi- 
spheres half a mile high were set up, and, 
in the open , spaces they inclosed, trees 
and shrubs were planted, smaller build- 
ings erected, and the wherewithal for 
everything needed to sustain plant and 
animal life was. brought together. 

Queerly, the matter of pure air was 
one of the simplest on the list. After a 
little computation the engineers in 
charge found that the structures would 
be large enough to maintain their own 
atmospheres. In other words, since 
the domes would contain both animals 
and plants — the former using oxygen 
to maintain metabolism and exhaling 
carbon dioxide, the latter using carbon 
dioxide and exhaling oxygen — the air 
would take care of itself as does the 
free air of Earth- All that was needed 
would be a series of great fans to keep 
breezes circulating freely through the 
domes. 

Another question was that of power 
— power not to build the domes, but to 
keep them habitable after they were 
built. There must be facilities for 
lighting and heating, and for number- 
less other things — even for the gener- 
ating of the larger rays of light without 



50 



ASTOUNDING STORIES 



which life is impossible. Usually these 
rays are supplied by the Sun, but it was 
known that after the holocaust they 
would never find their way in sufficient 
quantities through the thicker atmos- 
phere and through the roofs of the 
domes. 

In most cases power was supplied by 
building the domes near some rushing 
stream, thus also making sure of a wa- 
ter supply. However, this was done 
with misgivings, since it was feared that 
the chloro-cloud might blanket the Sun’s 
heat until Earth became a world of ice 
and snow, too; and then the streams 
would cease to run. But, the builders 
reflected, if this were the case they were 
doomed to failure ; they might be in any 
event. All in all it was a heart-breaking 
task. 

In other ways, besides the physical, 
difficulties encountered: no matter how 
ceaselessly they labored, they could 
never hope to build enough cities to 
house all the inhabitants of the world ; 
to do so was impossible. To think of 
saving themselves and a few of their 
friends and relatives, while the other 
five thousand parts of the population 
had no outlook ahead of them except to 
choke and strangle and die as chlorine 
gradually seeped into the atmosphere — 
well, that was the worst. 

Even the most scientifically cold- 
blooded of them all, those who claimed 
that individual lives were nothing, ex- 
cept as a means for furthering the race 
— even those felt that hard work was 
all that kept them from breaking under 
the strain. 

Those who had no share in the domes 
went wild toward the end. All they 
could do was to wait while the nebula 
came closer, while deadly gas began 
to cloud the outer portions of the Solar 
System. 

Violence, murder, and suicide became 
everyday occurrences in spite of the 
fact that a few years before that man- 
kind had acclaimed himself, “thoroughly 



civilized; even as individuals we are able 
to view any calamity with calmness.” 
By the time the first traces of the halo- 
gens began to tint the upper atmosphere, 
half the population of the world, it is 
estimated, had met violent death — per- 
haps an even larger percentage. After 
that they went in myriad numbers. 

Some fell back on religion, but it 
was a philosophy of death, not life, and 
dreary in the extreme. Many, for them- 
selves, chose a quick end rather than the 
agony of waiting. 

Since those who follow a creed usu- 
ally think that other people should be- 
lieve as they do, it was claimed wrong 
for the race to try to save itself. In- 
numerable prophets arose, preached 
various ecstasies, but, almost without 
exception, they claimed it the last duty 
of those who survived to destroy the 
covered cities where a remnant of the 
race sought to live on. 

And so the final hours of the uncov- 
ered world were spent in a remorseless 
attempt to destroy those who had moved 
into the hollow hemispheres. It was a 
carnage inconceivable to one who has 
not been faced by a universal doom like 
that coming with the chloro-cloud. 

The builders of the cities had ex- 
pected something of the sort, and were 
prepared. All the mighty engines of de- 
struction of that advanced age were to 
be used against them, so they retaliated 
in kind. But they did not escape un- 
scathed. Two dozen of the domes had 
been built on various continents in the 
more tropical parts of the world ; only 
half of these withstood the first on- 
slaught. Those in the remaining cities 
fought with a fury born of a hope for 
life, while those against them fought 
only to see that every one died. Natu- 
rally, while the odds were with the at- 
tackers. they hardly threw themselves 
into the fray as did those of the cities 

It is likely that the only thing which 
finally saved six cities was the fact that 
at the last the halogens diffused into the 



DEATH CLOUD 



51 



atmosphere with unexpected swiftness, 
so that the air became unbreathable a 
full forty-eight hours sooner than had 
been previously predicted. 

III. 

THE dying throes of the human race 
were horrible in the extreme; few of 
those who witnessed and survived cared 
to speak of that time. Karvel, who lived 
for a long time afterward, wrote a his- 
tory of the cataclysm in his later years. 
But even with a score of winters to tem- 
per the awfulness of his memory, he 
brushed over the more unpleasant de- 
tails. 

He wrote in part: “The bodies lay in 
great heaps around Onyal — my city. 
Some had been torn by shells ; others 
had died by the gas which came upon 
them while they slept, and morning 
found them still. All were not dead, 
since a few had slept in fliers with in- 
closed cabins which supplied their own 
air, and these had taken their craft a few 
thousand feet above the surface of the 
ground when they found the others were 
dying. 

“It must have been blood-chilling for 
them to awaken in the night to find their 
fellows clawing at their throats and beg- 
ging to be admitted. However, they 
could give no aid, since this would have 
doomed them, too. 

“Since our numbers had been depleted 
during the battle of the previous day, 
we admitted such fliers as were left. 
Also, there were a few space ships which 
had gone outside the atmosphere before 
the doom fell. It had been their purpose 
to seek another planet which might be 
more habitable, but the dangers of space 
travel had been increased a thousand- 
fold. Only one such ship was able to 
return safely to Earth. I understand 
that Rathol admitted it ” 

And of a few weeks later: “Natu- 

rally the bodies around Onyal were too 
numerous for us to attempt to dispose 



of. The sight of them bunched here 
and there as our people went to and 
from the mine workings threw certain 
individuals into a state of extreme pessi- 
mism, and was, I believe, the cause of 
the two cases of suicide which took 
place during the following month. For 
that reason I confined my people to the 
dome for some time after that, knowing 
what effect the more gradual dying of 
all plant life would probably have. 

“Most of us, nevertheless, did not 
care to die merely because the country 
around us was becoming barren. If that 
were the way of our race we would 
never have attained what status of prog- 
ress we have managed to scramble to 
during the ages.” 

It was a dreary outlook ahead. While 
there are some individuals capable of 
living out their lives all within a few 
miles of their birthplace, few of these 
would continue contentedly were they 
to discover there was no place else they 
could live. That was the case here ; and 
in the bustling period of the thirtieth 
century no one had been accustomed to 
looking upon a trip to the Moon or 
Venus as more than an easy journey. 

So it irked them to be confined to 
the transparent domes. Of course, they 
could visit other such cities; they had 
ships powerful enough to carry them 
to other planets, but there was no appre- 
ciable difference between one place and 
another. Mars was blanketed by the 
chloro-cloud ; so was Venus; even the 
Moon, which made Earth by far the 
most favorable world for the others 
•had always been unsuited to human life. 

THERE WAS little about the chloro- 
cloud which came to pass as it had been 
foretold, probably because every one, 
even Karvel, was inclined to be too opti- 
mistic. It had been thought that the 
Sun would attract the most of the gas, 
the planets coming in for small portions, 
especially such worlds as Earth, lying 
between the greater masses of Jupiter 



52 



ASTOUNDING STORIES 



and Sol. A few years while the hungry 
seas and ground drank up the gas and 
turned it into less volatile compounds, 
it was claimed — a few years more for 
good measure, and finally men might 
venture again from protection. 

But that was not the case. There was 
so much gas that a decade after the 
cataclysm the air of Earth was as 
chlorine- permeated as ever; and then 
people began to give up hope. It was 
just as well, for there had been no 
change after fifty years, after a hundred. 
Those who ventured unprotected outside 
the domes went down gasping and tear- 
ing at their throats, and, unless they 
were aided quickly, died. 

But, in the meantime, what became of 
the half dozen cities which housed all 
that remained of the once prolific races 
of Earth? In all, their population num- 
bered perhaps sixty thousand men, 
women, and children, and a similar num- 
ber of various tamed lower animals. 

Theoretically there was enough to 
keep every one busy, and to make them 
forget their lot. They visited between 
the domes, or worked the distant mines. 
At intervals they went over and 
strengthened the domes, since what 
flourine there was in the outer atmos- 
phere combined with the silicon used in 
the construction of the hollow hemi- 
spheres and gradually weakened the 
structures. 

In theory there was plenty to do, but 
not in practice. As generations passed, 
apathy gradually overtook the people, so 
that they hardly cared what went on. 
One dome was left unrepaired so long 
that finally it cracked and fell in, and be- 
neath it those who were not crushed to 
death had only a little time to wish that 
they had been more diligent. 

Two more went to war. Living to 
themselves, as the inhabitants of each 
dome did now, a fierce patriotism was 
springing up, and the practice of visit- 
ing between cities was dying out. Then 



came a little quarrel over a mine work- 
ing, and a going over of old guns. 

Two cities vanished in little more than 
the flicker of an eye, while a few 
motherless fliers darted hither and 
thither. Karnak finally took them in; 
but they carried their quarrel with them. 
For a few days all was tranquillity, and 
then Karnak went down in civil war. 
After that there was peace l>etween the 
two remaining cities for a long time. 

Onyal and Naraval knew that strife 
did not pay. And since they were sepa- 
rated by some two thousand miles of 
rough country — close enough to be 
bridged with ease by swift fliers, far 
enough to preclude most petty disagree- 
ment — they lived in amity. 

Once each generation — there was no 
set date — they came together to ex- 
change young men and women that there 
might not be too much imbreeding. 
Occasionally they communicated be- 
tween these times, but only to a small 
extent. Those who made too frequent 
visits were regarded with suspicion on 
both sides. They had learned the dan- 
gers of being too much together, but 
they knew it to be as dangerous to stay 
altogether apart. 

GAR NEL wanted to change that, for 
he had new ideas. Gar Nel was bom 
in Onyal some seven hundred years 
after the coming of the chloro-cloud. 
Perhaps it was a little longer than that, 
perhaps not so long; time was hardly 
considered worth the measuring any 
more. He lived in the days of the de- 
cline of man, for life had become a 
monotonous ritual to be observed be- 
cause there was nothing else to do. 
Routine had almost destroyed. initiative. 

Gar Nel was different from the other 
young men of his age. From the day 
he first opened his eyes on Onyal, he 
wondered at his surroundings. 

“Why,” he asked, when he was very 
young, “do we live inside this dome 
when there is so much ground outside? 



DEATH CLOUD 



53 



Plants grow out there.” And they did. 
Nature, the immutable, had been sus- 
ceptible to change, for after all plants 
had died from the noxious gas she cul- 
tured types capable of living in the gas. 
Now there were strange-hued trees and 
shrubs growing in favorable places, and 
they were spreading because they had no 
natural enemies. And some folks said 
they had seen a few insects, though most 
were not certain that anything moving 
could stand the gas. 

Now the young man knew why his 
kind stuck to the protection of the 
domes, but still it bothered him. Yet 
of all the odd two thousand who now 
inhabited Onyal — their numbers had 
shrunk to that — he could find but two 
others who seemed to care. 

It was not as though chlorine stran- 
gled one by its inactivity, as pure carbon 
dioxide, or nitrogen would. Its deadli- 
ness lay in its activity, for it attacked 
cell structure. 

“Very possibly,” the white-bearded 
Rael told him, “somewhere in the uni- 
verse there are planets which have al- 
ways had atmospheres of chlorine, as 
Earth’s was once principally of nitrogen 
and oxygen. Upon such a planet types 
of plant and animal life might evolve 
very similar to that of Earth, except 
that they would breathe chlorine, or 
compounds of it. 

“As an element chlorine is active 
enough, in most cases, to take the place 
of oxygen. The trouble on our planet 
is that it is too active for us. Because 
animals have evolved to breathe oxygen 
they die in chlorine; if the chloro-cloud 
had blanketed our world back in dim, 
prehistoric days, and stayed, men might 
possibly have still evolved, except that 
then they would look upon chlorine as 
one of the needed constituents of the 
atmosphere. Very likely one which they 
could not get along without.” 

Rael told him many such things, for 
Rael of the white beard was the 'last 



scientist. He studied the workings of 
nature as his father had before him, and 
in him Gar Nel found a confident. 
Though Rael was by far the older ; in 
fact he had a granddaughter very nearly 
the young man’s age, there was much 
in common between the two. And the 
maid, Loala, only interested Gar Nel 
the more. She was a girl to make the 
pulses leap — lovely, alluring, and with 
a mind as keen as that of Rael. 

It was to them Gar Nel told his secret 
wish ; now that he knew men could not 
live outside the domes, during his life- 
time, at least. But to him it was a 
calamity that they existed as they did — 
Onyal to itself, with the dome of Na- 
raval as provincial, and the inhabitants 
of both growing fewer each generation. 

“I would like to reawaken the old, 
old interest in life,” he said. “It’s the 
heritage of mankind, and all that keeps 
us alive now. But it’s a dying interest, 
for there’s nothing but sameness.” 

If he could obtain the cooperation of 
Naraval, he thought, if he could start 
a visiting between the two cities, then 
his end might finally be attained. New 
friendships would arise, new interests. 
Perhaps, in time, these might lead to 
the rebuilding of some of the destroyed 
domes and a new working of the mine 
sites; for he had far-reaching ideas. 

All this he told a little hesitantly, for 
the others did not seem to see as he did. 
To his surprise Rael was in favor of the 
plan. 

“You do your work,” he said, “and 
I’ll do mine.” Yet that was all he 
would vouchsafe. 

IV. 

AS GAR NEL let himself into the 
air lock he was thinking back on all this, 
and while he struggled with the mount- 
ing of a heavy gun his mind was busy 
elsewhere. For he had tried and failed. 

He had forgotten the inertia of the 
minds of his people. Theirs was an 



£4 



ASTOUNDING STORIES 




apathy built up with the dust of dead 
generations, and an endless living to 
themselves beneath the curving trans- 
parency which kept them alive. 

They could still keep the fliers run- 
ning, and the domes repaired, but little 
more. And since Naraval and Onyal 
distrusted each other they cherished the 
old weapons their ancestors had in- 
vented, though only the more simple of 
such machines. They had guns which 
fired exploding pellets, and bombs which 
would blow holes in the domes, were 
they dropped correctly upon them. But 
the more potent weapons had been too 
intricate, and were forgotten. 



That was good, Gar Nel told himself, 
now that the worst had happened. For 
the Naravalians had looked upon all 
manifestations of friendship as an at- 
tempt to undermine them, and had 
grown more hostile with each visit. A 
few times they had accepted him, and 
then their anger was aroused. At Rael’s 
request he had not ventured near the 




DEATH CLOUD 



55 



other city for more than a month. And 
then, this last time, it was only to see 
a fleet leave the air locks and wing heav- 
ily toward Onyal, which could only 
mean one thing — war ! 

“But I’m not to blame,” Gar Nel told 
himself fiercely, as with quick fingers he 
completed the mounting of his gun. 
And then he fell to denouncing himself, 
for, like all dreamers, he was sometimes 
not plausible. And there were Loala 
and her hurt grandfather helpless be- 
neath him. 

Yet those of Onyal, his own city, did 
not trust him. They had clustered 
around' Loala, and now she was gone. 
But still a knot of them stood far be- 
neath him. He could see them gesti- 
culating in heated discussion as one or 
another of them pointed in his direction. 

Five finally detached themselves from 
the others and hurried up the stairs to- 
ward him, while the others set off for 
the dome guns and the other various air 
locks. Fools ! Why hadn’t they opened 
the one in which his flier was? One 
flier to slow the enemy now would be 
better than a dozen after the attacking 
force had reached the dome ! 

He had' not a long wait, for shortly 
the five had reached the inner door, 
were opening it, coming through. He 
recognized them all. 

This was stark foolishness! Hadn’t 
they understood Loala? 

One of them motioned for him to 
come out of the ship. “What’s the trou- 
ble, Morvan?” he asked when he had 
obeyed. Then he saw that the others 
were closing around him, forming a 
guard. 

“You brought the news that Naraval 
is attacking?” Morvan questioned, 
scowling. 

“Yes; I saw them this morning. It’s 
a big fleet; every flier they have, I 
imagine. The only reason I beat them 
here was because they were weighted 
down with weapons.” 

After a glance at the five sullen faces, 



Gar Nel lost his temper. “Haven’t you 
any sense at all ?” he asked, his voice ris- 
ing. “I’ve told you we’re being at- 
tacked, and you just stand there. You’re 
the best pilot, Morvan, and there’s only 
a little time. Do something, or open 
the air lock so I can !” 

“That’s it,” said Morvan. “You’ve 
already done too much.” 

Gar Nel’s eyes narrowed. “Because 
I was trying to wake you up, bring you 
out of this sleep you’re all in, you blame 

me ” He broke off, anger surging 

strong now — anger at them for their 
apathy, for the blame which he felt was 
unjust, most of all because with menace 
to their dome on the way they stopped 
to argue. 

But Morvan only nodded his head. 
“We know you’re to blame,” he said. 
“Even if this wasn’t what you planned 
at the start, if you had left well enough 
alone Naraval wouldn’t Be attacking 
now. We’re going to keep you under 
observation ; how do we know what else 
you might do?” 

And then, to one of the others : “Take 
him, Ogo ; don’t hurt him unless he tries 
to escape, but don’t let him get away,” 

Gar Nel saw the gleam of a gun in 
the grasp of him whom Morvan had ap- 
pointed. He recognized the huge frame. 
It was best to go with the man, he rea- 
soned, rather than waste any more pre- 
cious time. 

“We’ll have your trial when the bat- 
tle’s over,” he heard Morvan say, as he 
went through the inner door. “If we 
find you guilty, as I think we will, we’ll 
put you outside the dome.” But he 
made no reply. 

HE WALKED slowly down the 
stairs, Ogo following behind. Ogo was 
taller than Gar Nel, even, and much 
heavier. A stolid, unimaginative sort, 
from whom he could expect no sym- 
pathy. 

But did he deserve sympathy, he was 



56 



ASTOUNDING STORIES 



wondering, for his mind was already 
beginning to swing the other way. 
After all, wasn’t Morvan right? If he 
had left Naraval alone, would its fliers 
be attacking now? Wasn’t he just as 
guilty as- though he had consciously 
turned traitor to Onyal, to his race? 

No, he told himself, clenching his 
fists. It would be better if both cities 
were blown to ruins in one last flare, 
than to go the way they had been drift- 
ing — better that every man, woman, and 
child perished in the chloro-cloud than 
that they sank down slowly in a more 
lingering, but just as sure, end. As it 
had been headed, the race was doomed. 
He lifted his head'. If only he could do 
something ! 

“Walk more slowly,” came the rum- 
ble of Ogo’s voice. “I’m supposed to 
stay close to you.” 

They were descending the last flight 
of stairs when the fliers took off. Gar 
Nel could hear their roar faintly, as 
from a distance. And almost at the 
.same instant, from farther away, an- 
other drone impressed itself on his con- 
sciousness — the fleet from Naraval. 

If the others had not wasted so much 
time they could have met the fleet far- 
ther out. While probably no single 
pilot from Naraval cared to destroy the 
dome of Onyal, knowing, if he did so, 
that some flier on the other side would 
break through and do the same to his 
own dome, men did not always act ac- 
cording to their better judgment during 
the heat of battle. 

And while there were guns set up 
here and there along the inside of the 
roof to be manned by the women, these 
guns were not at all capable of protect- 
ing the rounded expanse from a swift 
flier carrying exploding bombs. It had 
been different in the old days of ray 
warfare, when their fathers had fought 
to carry on the race ; but now the domes, 
by themselves, were almost defenseless. 
That was the main reason why Onyal 
and Naraval had not cared to war; it 



would in all likelihood mean mutual de- 
struction. 

And what would happen to Loala? 

The thought came suddenly, and he 
looked around to see if she were visible 
anywhere. Perhaps she was climbing 
up a winding way toward a dome gun ; 
then he remembered that she had prom- 
ised to stay with Rael, who was hurt. 
She was safe then, until the worst hap- 
pened, and they bombed the dome. 

Gar Nel made his way to a place 
where there was nothing to impede 
vision except the transparent expanse of 
the dome above, and here he sat down. 
Ogo seemed not to mind, for he said 
nothing. But Gar Nel saw he was 
watching him covertly, his gun ready. 

“Ogo,” he asked, “aren’t you inter- 
ested in who wins?” 

“Of course; but I was told to watch 
you and see that you did no harm.” 

“Ogo,” he said placatingly, “you know 
that I don’t want anything to happen to 
Onyal, my own city. Even if Morvan 
wants me inside, he would not care if 
we two manned a rOof gun. None of 
the women are good shots, and they 
might hit our own fliers. Let the two 
of us find a high gun, where we can see 
the battle, and we may be able to help 
our men. Any one who can hold a gun 
as steadily as you do should be a good 
shot.” 

A smile appeared on the blank coun- 
tenance, and for a moment Gar Nel 
thought that the praise would have its 
effect. Then a shrewd look came into 
the little eyes. “How do I know you 
wouldn’t shoot our fliers?” the other 
asked. “No, Gar Nel, I don’t trust 
you. If you say anything more to turn 
me from my duty I’ll shoot you in the 
leg so you can’t climb the stairs.” 

Gar Nel said nothing more. 

WHILE the dome was exceedingly 
transparent, considering its thickness, 
the more clouded air on the outer side 
hindered observation. The two men 



DEATH CLOUD 



57 



on the ground could see the fleets meet, 
a mile away, like black flies. They 
looked small and insignificant, but each 
of them, the captive reflected, was capa- 
ble of destroying the domes of Naraval 
and Onyal, and thus dooming the human 
race. He looked around. 

For the first time he realized dis- 
tinctly just what it would be to have 
the great roof crack and shatter, to have 
pieces of it fall, letting the poison vapor 
drift in from the outside. And Loala 
was here ! 

“Lord!” he muttered. 

Ogo looked at him queerly. 

Now Gar Nel imagined that he could 
hear the quick staccato of firing, that 
he could see tiny darts of flame leap out 
from the fliers. It was like looking at 
a dim, awful play. From here he could 
not even tell which were which. And, 
if he could, what difference would it 
make; what help could he give, if help 
were needed? He buried his face in his 
hands. 

What seemed a long time after that 
the excited rumble of Ogo’s voice caused 
him to raise his head. Apparently the 
man had forgotten his prisoner, for his 
gun had dropped to his side, while his 
head was craned backward with jaw 
adrop. “Look,” he was saying. “They’re 
coming closer.” 

They were. Half a dozen ships were 
fighting almost above the dome, while 
the others waged battle farther away. 
As he looked, one of those closest to 
them seemed to halt in mid-air. Then it 
was coming in spirals toward them. 

“It’s going to strike,” shrieked Ogo, 
his face ashen. “What if it’s carrying 
bombs ?” 

Luckily, however, an air current ris- 
ing from the rounded surface caught it, 
bearing it to one side. It crashed far 
away, out of sight of the two watchers. 

It had been thinking of this time 
which had unstrung Gar Nel; now that 
it was at hand his nerves were in perfect 



control. Not so the other. Lacking 
imagination Ogo had not pictured dan- 
ger to the dome, and thus to himself, 
until it was directly at hand. 

His heavy chin quivered ; there were 
tears in his eyes. His hand holding the 
gun butt was tightening and' the weapon 
was in danger of firing. 

“Do something! Do something!” he 
shrieked, his voice rising eerily. 

But the other had already weighed 
all chances. “There’s nothing,” he said 
quietly, “that we can do.” 

The even tenor of his words had their 
effect, but no't in. the desired fashion. 
They brought Ogo back to his senses, 
but only to realize that the man before 
him, at his mercy, was he whom the 
others blamed. Cruelty replaced , the 
terror in his eyes. 

“I’m going to shoot you, Gar Nel,” 
he said, “and leave you here till the gas 
comes.” He raised the gun. Moved by 
an impulse of revenge, he was steady 
again. 

Gar Nel was facing him, rising to his 
feet from hands and knees. Suddenly 
his vision focused on something behind 
the other, above him. “Look, Ogo, 
look,” he gasped, pointing. 

It was not all ruse. Gar Nel had 
seen the flier which detached itself from 
those fighting to one side, which came 
sweeping toward the dome. It seemed 
like a wounded bird, now rising, now 
falling, as though its pilot could only 
partially control it. 

“A Naravalian,” he guessed. "Hurt; 
going to get us before he goes out.” 

As if in averment to his guess a shape 
dropped from the bottom of the flier and 
came hurtling down toward the roof. 
It was followed closely by another like 
it. Bombs ! 

Ogo looked up as the first of the mis- 
siles struck, shrieked again. The gun 
he held was pointed at Gar Nel, and his 
fingers, tightening spasmodically, pulled 
the trigger. 



58 



ASTOUNDING STORIES 



The bullet barely missed its intended 
victim, passing beneath his left arm as 
he threw himself forward. He grasped 
the thick wrist of the other, as the sec- 
ond of the bombs struck. Great cracks 
spread as it exploded; it seemed that 
the whole dome quivered. Transparent 
pieces of the roof began to fall, while 
wisps of the yellowish atmosphere crept 
sluggishly through the openings. 

But the two fighting below and to one 
side were oblivious to all but each other. 

V. 

IT WAS a battle to the death, while 
death more cruel but just as sure seeped 
in around them. Even while he fought, 
Gar Nel realized the futility of it; but 
he had promised Loala to come to her 
at the end, and the other was striving 
to kill him. 

His dive had knocked the gun from 
Ogo’s hand, and it had fallen out of 
reach. Then the thick arms of the 
larger man went around him, pinning 
his own left arm helpless at his side. 
Jokingly, the battlers fell, Gar Nel 
writhing over so that he landed on top. 
But the apelike grasp of his opponent 
threatened to stop his breath, and he 
fought with the fury of a wild cat to 
break free. 

Doubling his right fist, he sent it in 
short, biting drives against the other’s 
face and body. Ogo gasped, doubling 
his short neck in an attempt to draw his 
face out of range of the blows which 
already had brought blood, for they 
threatened to knock him senseless. 
Finally able to bear the punishment no 
longer, he relaxed his arms. 

Gar Nel scrambled out of reach, 
plunging for the fallen gun which he 
saw a little distance away. Then some- 
thing struck him hard beneath his short 
ribs, and he doubled up, breathless. In 
rising, Ogo had grasped a rock, or piece 
of metal, which he had thrown. 



Now his opponent lay on the ground, 
paralyzed for an instant, and summon- 
ing what speed he could, Ogo ran for- 
ward. 

As in a dream, Gar Nel saw the huge 
form coming for him. All was pande- 
monium. A dozen creatures ran by, 
bleating hideously. He dimly recog- 
nized them as sheep. 

Ogo was almost above him now, 
drawing back one great foot to kick the 
life from him. With a supreme effort. 
Gar Nel darted forth one hand, seized 
the gun, fired. The cruel expression of 
the face above him relaxed, was sup- 
planted by one of sudden pain. Slowly, 
Ogo crumpled and went down. Far 
away a great piece of dome fell, crush- 
ing a little knot of buildings with a bab- 
ble of sound. 

As he came to his feet, Gar Nel’s eyes 
took in the surroundings. There was 
little more of the dome to fall, he saw, 
for only a small portion of the great 
expanse had been damaged, and all the 
great girders seemed solid. However, 
the wrecked section was too large to re- 
pair, at least before chlorine had made 
the interior uninhabitable. Already it 
seemed that the poison was showing in 
the air, though he could not yet feel it 
biting at his nose and throat as he 
breathed. 

The fight must have lasted longer 
than he had supposed, for the fliers were 
gone. When the dome had been rup- 
tured, he supposed, certain of the Onya- 
lian pilots, grief-stricken, had broken 
away and set out for Naraval, to repay 
in kind. That meant that both domes 
were doomed ! 

Gar Nel felt neither glad nor sorry; 
he was conscious only of being tired, 
and that above all he wanted to find 
Loala. He must ! The building where 
she and Rael dwelt was undamaged, he 
saw, with sudden gladness. He made 
his way toward it. 



DEATH CLOUD 



59 



LOALA was inside, by her grand- 
father’s bed. Her eyes opened in sud- 
den alarm when she saw him, for he was 
disheveled and bloody. 

“I’m not hurt,” he told her quickly ; 
“but the dome’s broken, and the gas 
is coming in. Your grandfather — how 
is he?” 

He felt resigned and calm, but it sur- 
prised him vastly when Loala smiled. 
“He’s conscious,” she said. “He wants 
to speak to you.” 

But it was the right attitude, he re- 
flected. They could all only die now ; 
and if it would make the old man feel 
better to speak to them, why, let him. 
The tinge of the gas would be felt in 
the atmosphere before long now. 

He was almost gay as he bent down 
over the scientist’s drawn, white face. 
The other could not last much longer, 
he saw, as their eyes met. 

Weakly, Rael motioned for him to 
lean close, and he kneeled on one side 
of the bed, Loala opposite him. 

“I can’t talk much,” Rael said. “Old 
idea; told you — something of it long 
— ago. Halogens, chlorine — not dan- 
gerous to cells, except attacks them. 
Witness plants — that have — adopted 
themselves to atmosphere— poisonous to 
— us. Cell structure — changed — grown 
tougher.” 

The old man’s breath quickened, his 
speech died away. Gar Nel wondered 
at his making this effort only to speak 
of an old theory ; then he looked across 
at Loala, something near to panic in his 
eyes. Above them the gas had been 
creeping down through the breaks in the 
roof, diffusing with the air inside. They 
should be beginning to cough in the first 
unpleasantness which would lead finally 
to agony and death. And yet 

Gathering sudden energy Rael raised 
himself, shaking loose his granddaugh- 
ter’s detaining hands. His dim eyes 



blazed anew ; his voice was steady and 
strong. 

“Rays,” he said, leaving out all but 
the most necessary of words, knowing 
that at best he could speak but little 
longer. “Been working on them for a 
long time now, as my father did. Long 
rays, various frequencies, between X 
and cosmic. Studied them in old books. 
Have strange affect on cell structure 
when properly handled. Perfected 
treatment ; or thought I had. Tested on 
mice ; made them able to stand gas ; 
found the changes transmitted them- 
selves hereditably.” 

Gar Nel understood now. He nodded 
his head to show it, to save the old man 
one last moment of effort. But Rael 
wanted to finish in his own way : 

“Changed ultra-violet generators in 
roof ; no one knew. Was intending to 
surprise. Fell this morning when com- 
ing down from inspection. Uncon- 
scious, didn’t know about Naraval. 
Every one in Onyal been soaking in rays 
long enough. I had you stay here a 
month straight to complete your treat- 
ment. Gas won’t hurt any of you now. 

“My gift ” 

Weakly, he spread his hands, his smile 
benign— as should be that of one who 
has given back the Earth to his children. 
Gar Nel and Loala bore him gently 
backward until be was once more lying 
at ease. Then for a long time they 
looked across at each other over his 
now still body, wonder, solemnity, and 
dawning happiness visible behind the 
tears in their eyes. 

“God bless him,” said Gar Nel finally. 

And a little later he rose and went out 
to see who else had survived the falling 
wreckage. It was harder to see, now 
that the air was yellowish. But the sheep 
were grazing contentedly at a little dis- 
tance. Suddenly he realized that every- 
thing seemed very beautiful. 




Out of the vortex rose 
great transparent things 
which danced along the 
water 



The Shapes 

What the night revealed when the 
visitors from a far planet were released 



by R. DeWitt Miller 



W HEN the lake was the color 
of polished bronze, Conway 
knew it would happen. That 
was the moment they always came, the 
instant before twilight when the slanting 
sun turned the water into a caldron of 
livid, flaming metal. 



Just over the top of the low hills at 
the southern end of the lake he could 
see the star, a hazy point of light strug- 
gling for visibility. If they ever suc- 
ceeded, it should be to-night when the 
star was so close ; the night seemed 
hushed, expectantly waiting 




THE SHAPES 



61 



He pointed through the open window 
of the cabin. 

“Watch the center of the lake,” he 
said to the man beside him. 

Professor Albert Blevins, gaunt and 
austere, came and stood at Conway’s 
shoulder. His deep-set eyes glinted in 
the metallic glow. The flaming light 
gave his sallow features a synthetic ap- 
pearance of health, and reddened his 
thin, ascetic lips. 

“Conway, must we stand by this win- 
dow with the wind blowing across the 
lake? Can’t you see your mysterious 
shapes from somewhere else, or perhaps 
wait until after dinner?” 

Conway jerked about. His voice was 
rasping, edged with hysteria. 

“Blevins, you’ve laughed at me for 
fifteen years. You hounded me out of 
my place at the observatory.” 

“Don’t be melodramatic. You know 
I had nothing to do with it. The board 
makes the appointments.” 

“The board acted because you’d al- 
ready made me the laughingstock of 
every professor at the university. You 
ridiculed my books, and called me a 
throw-back to the days of superstition. 
They had to fire me.” 

“That’s ridiculous.” Blevins shrugged, 
his bony fingers tapping on the window 
sill. “Why should I do that?” 

“Because you’re afraid. You’re afraid 
that if my data ever came to light, you’d 
be out looking for a job. You’re like 
all the rest of the astronomers. You 
squelch a radical. You hide facts. You 
know that if the truth ever gets out, 
you’re through — all of you. 

“For a hundred years now you’ve been 
saying that the stars were separated 
from the Earth by many billions of 
miles. But they aren’t. Somebody mis- 
calculated at the beginning, and the 
whole damn bunch of you have been 
swearing to it ever since, so you won’t 
look like fools to have swallowed it. 

“I brought you here to prove that 
your whole system is a drunken dream. 



Something’s coming out of this lake 
that’ll make you look like witch doctors.” 

“I still think we could see just as well 
with the window closed,” Professor 
Blevins murmured. 

“See, yes, but not hear. I want you 
to hear. I want you to hear them cry- 
ing, pleading, begging to be taken home 
— to the lands beyond the Moon, or the 
valleys of Mars, or wherever they came 
from. Or, if Pm right, to that planet, 
the planet which you people claim is 
scorched and dead.” 

Conway’s arm swung and pointed to 
the star whose tiny amber gleam showed 
just above the southern hills. 

“It was the wailing that first brought 
me to this lake,” he went on more calmly. 
“You know the Indians call this the 
Lake of the Crying Shadows. I knew 
they were some place on the Earth. For 
five hundred years there have been 
things going on that couldn’t have any 
other interpretation. 

“There were the devil’s footprints in 
the snow for thirty miles across 
England. Surely you’ve heard of them. 
And the systems’ cup marks in Great 
Britain, America, Circassia, Algeria, 
Palestine — all the same — the same code 
drilled into the rocks by some force out- 
side the Earth. They’re messages that 
went wrong, code flung at the Earth in 
the hope of reaching the lost ones. 

“I’ve told you about the legends that 
center around this lake. There’s the 
rock that’s painted with Indian char- 
acters. But the thing they’re trying to 
represent isn’t of this world. It’s a 
monstrous oblong thing with rods pro- 
truding on all sides. The archaeologists 
claim it was meant to be a large war 
canoe. They would. They’ll always 
be trying to make explanations, until 
they start looking somewhere else be- 
sides on this planet. 

“Then there’s the story that the In- 
dians tell about a fiery monster which 
lives down in the lake. They know he’s 
there because they saw him come, a 



62 



ASTOUNDING STORIES 



thousand moons ago. Even you astrono- 
mers admit there might be something in 
that one — meteor landing in the lake. 
But there are more things that come out 
of the sky than meteors, there’s ” 

CONWAY’S VOICE stopped as if 
unseen fingers had choked it off. The 
wind outside had died. The flaming sky 
brooded over the bronze lake. In an- 
other moment sudden darkness would 
clap down. The stillness was complete, 
the last bit of sound had been sucked 
out of the world. 

Then there came a little wisp of 
vibration, high, shrill, plaintive. It hesi- 
tated, stopped, began again, trilling just 
at the edge of audibility. 

It was difficult to place the sound. 
It seemed to come from the center of 
the lake, but the water was motionless. 
There was a queer muffled touch that 
suggested some origin deep in the dead 
volcanic crater which the lake filled. 

Gradually, as the seconds passed, the 
sound grew in strength. A rhythm was 
now clearly distinguishable : pulsing, 

changing in pitch, fading away to noth- 
ing, then shrilling forth in a regulated 
series of dots and dashes. The likeness 
to a code was unmistakable — a strange, 
complicated code, built up not only of 
spacing, but of modulation and pitch as 
well. 

Louder and louder, the sound vibrated 
over the water. A new note was creep- 
ing into it, a human note, oddly like a 
woman’s voice in wordless agony. It 
was as if the intense longing behind the 
strange cadence had broken through all 
barriers of code and language and struck 
straight to the brains of the men in the 
cabin. It was life essence talking to life 
essence. 

Over and over it sobbed, its wail seem- 
ing to vibrate the cabin. 

“I’ve never heard it so loud,” Conway 
muttered. “They know. They know 
it’s the best chance they’re going to have 
for half a century — half a century more 



down in that lake ! Oh, Lord, I hope 
they make it.” 

Still the sound screamed out over the 
somber pines, over the water, on over 
the southern hills, into the depths of the 
approaching night, where the evening 
star glowed brighter. 

Abruptly, the rhythm was broken. It 
changed to one long, indescribably plain- 
tive note that slowly ebbed into silence. 

Professor Blevins turned from the 
window, but Conway pulled him back. 

“It isn’t over yet. In a minute they’ll 
come out of the lake to see if they’ve 
gotten through.” 

As he spoke, the surface of the lake 
was broken by expanding ripples that 
moved outward from the center and 
splashed in tiny waves on the shore. 

Out of the vortex something began 
to rise. Great soap bubbles danced 
along the water, huge transparent things 
through which showed the pines across 
the lake. The last of flaming sunset 
touched them and made them into 
beautiful things of golden iridescence. 

They were shapes out of the pit, not 
of human consciousness, opposed to the 
race experience of all dwellers on the 
Earth. There was nothing in human 
language to express the beauty, the light- 
ness, the glorious freedom of those 
dancing shapes that moved, undulated, 
swayed — balls of gleaming mist, bit of 
conscious moonlight, pure thought made 
visible. 

“And you really think I’ll be im- 
pressed by some simple optical illusiun 
that any decent meteorologist could ex- 
plain,” Blevins said harshly.' 

“No,” Conway said quietly, “no, 
Blevins. Those shapes aren’t of tint 
world. They’re adapted to a different 
type of existence. They belong in a 
world of pressure, terrible pressure 
which forced them to become pliable, 
nebulous, unsubstantial, so that pressure 
wouldn’t crush them. They’s why they 
stay down there in the lake, so the 
pressure of all those tons of water will 



THE SHAPES 



63 



keep them from exploding. They don’t 
dare come out for more than an instant.” 

Suddenly, the darkness closed in. The 
last glow was gone in an instant, leaving 
only the feeble gleams of the Moon and 
the stars, rapidly being blotted out by a 
rising mass of cloud. The wind had re- 
vived. It murmured among the pines, 
and whipped the lake into a mass of 
white caps. 

In the darkness of the cabin Professor 
Blevins moved furtively toward the man 
by the window who muttered to him- 
self : “Oh, Lord, I hope they come.” 

ABOVE the shriek of the wind rose 
another, greater sound, a mighty crash- 
ing crescendo. The interior of the cabin 
was illumined by a ghastly crimson glare. 
Professor Blevins shrank against the 
wall, but Conway did not turn. He 
stared at the lake, tossing in the stark 
radiance. 

It struck in the center of the water, 
a terrific bolt of fire that rocked the 
Earth and churned the lake into a fury 
of crashing water, leaving the two men 
half blinded in the trembling cabin. 

“They’ve come for them,” Conway 
shouted over the wind. “Thank Heaven, 
they’ve come after the lost astral expe- 
dition. They’ll take them home to their 
own lands, their own world. Five hun- 
dred years they’ve waited down there in 
that lake, hoping that some day they 
could leave this unfamiliar Earth where 
they were stranded when their power 
gave out, or their space ship broke 
down.” 

He stumbled across the room, and 



started down the steep path that led to 
the water. A tall, silent figure followed 
him. 

But, before Conway could descend to 
the lake, the Earth shuddered ; the same 
unbearable light brought the pines and 
the hills into brilliant relief, and some- 
thing shot from the seething water and 
into the night sky. 

It was gone instantaneously, leaving 
only the suggestion of a monstrous 
thing, propelled by some power unknown 
on Earth, that had passed like a night- 
mare shape. That darkness was total. 
The moon and the stars were lost in the 
swiftly moving clouds. The wind tore 
at the men on the edge of the cliff. 

“They’re gone,” Conway screamed, 
and the wind jerked the words from his 
lips. “I won't have to listen to them 
cry any more. I won’t have to hear 
them pleading. I won’t have to think 
of them down there in the lake ” 

He staggered. The shove was utterly 
unexpected. He had not even known 
that Blevins was there. He had no 
chance to turn, or regain his balance. 

His body toppled over the edge of the 
rock wall, and hurtled down to the up- 
flung pinnacles of rock against which 
the lake battered. The churning water 
played a moment with the limp form, 
then sucked it out into the lake. 

Professor Albert Blevins stood mo- 
tionless on the top of the cliff, his lean 
frame braced against the wind. He 
muttered to himself in a queer, childish 
way : “Science has explained everything. 
It has rebuilt the world. Nothing must 
shake it, nothing ” 





Mathematica 



A novel of the science 
of origins 

by 

John Russell 
Fearn 



I SIT DOWN to write these words 
in a world that has changed un- 
recognizably— indeed in a new 
world altogether; in a universe that is 
alien and strange and bears no relation 
whatever to the universe I once knew. 

In the retrospect, I see now quite 
clearly that it was the fragment from 
Vulcan that started the whole amazing 

AST-4 








Machinery! And what machinery! Machines 
which had no Earthly similarity! 



business and precipitated me — my name 
is Vernon Walsh — Dr. Farrington, and 
a denizen of another universe into the 
most remarkable experience ever meted 
out to thinking creatures — ■ — 

To commence my story properly I 
must return to a scorching day in July, 
1980. At that time I was an analyst 
in the New York Institute of Scientific 
Research, and a firm friend of Dr. Far- 

AST-5 



rington’s. He, by far my superior in 
knowledge, was directly connected with 
metallurgy, electricity, magnetism, and 
kindred subjects ; hence, it was into his 
hands that the metal from Vulcan first 
came. 

Space travel was first accomplished 
in 1975, and two years later Captain 
Dawson of the spaceways, at extreme 
risk to himself and crew, located the 





66 



ASTOUNDING STORIES 



formerly purely theoretical planet of 
Vulcan. His ship, composed of the 
strongest fire-resisting alloys known to 
the science of that time, was neverthe- 
less badly blistered by the approach to 
the asteroid called Vulcan, owing to its 
alarming nearness to the Sun. 

However, despite the danger and the 
overpowering drag of the orb of day, he 
was successful in landing on the strange 
little world, to find it nothing more or 
less than a circular mass of riveted 
metal. This alone was enough to sug- 
gest that the asteroid itself might be the 
work of intelligent beings — but so inim- 
ical to life were the conditions, that the 
party stayed only long enough to re- 
move a portion of the surface with mag- 
netizers — the merest fragment compared 
to the whole mass — and returned to 
Earth with the prize. 

It was on that July in 1980 that Daw- 
son brought the metal to my friend for 
examination, and as fortune — or was it 
misfortune? — had it, I was also present 
at the time. 

“The stuff doesn’t classify into any- 
thing I know of,” Dawson remarked, 
lifting the lid of the stout bakelite box 
in which the foot-square of metal was 
contained. “It’s some very heavy ele- 
ment of some kind or other — nothing 
on Earth like it, I believe. Have a 
look.” 

Dr. Farrington surveyed the metal 
thoughtfully, then he smiled. 

“Well, I’ll try and analyze it, any- 
how,” he promised. “Congratulations, 
Dawson. You’ve made up the collection 
now. We’ve fragments from all the 
planets except mysterious Vulcan. Now 
that’s cleaned up we’re O. K. Next 
time you can bring something back from 
the Milky Way, if you like.” 

Dawson ignored the banter; his face 
was grimly serious. 

“Offhand, what would you say the 
metal is?” he persisted. “I want to 
know.” 

“Why so anxious?” 



“Well — er — it may sound queer, but 
when we were on Vulcan, everything 
we thought about happened !” 

Farrington’s expression changed. So, 
I imagine^did mine. 

“Happened!” he echoed blankly. 
“What do you mean by that?” 

“Well, you know — just the ordinary 
run of our thoughts. For instance, 
while we were getting the stuff I hap- 
pened to think, quite subconsciously, of 
my wife and kids at home. Believe it 
or not they materialized in the flesh 
right before me, then changed just as 
rapidly into something beyond my un- 
derstanding, which finally evaporated 
altogether. Believe me, it scared me 
stiff! All my boys will testify to sim- 
ilar experiences. Just as though the 
thought became actual and then trans- 
formed itself like something alive into 
something — well, quite beyond my lim- 
ited understanding. That’s why I want 
to know what the metal’s composed of.” 
“I don’t wonder!” Farrington mut- 
tered, and began to stroke his chin. 
Had Dawson made such statements 
twenty years earlier he would have been 
deemed insane; in 1980, however, men 
were more prone to listen to extraordi- 
nary narratives — and analyze them. Be- 
sides, Dawson was a man of renown — 
steady, iron-nerved, and certainly not 
given to fantastic conceptions. 

“Have you tried this thought-material- 
izing stunt with this chunk?” the doc- 
tor asked presently, and Dawson vehe- 
mently shook his bullet head. 

“No! It scares me, I tell you. I 
put it in that bakelite box to insulate it 
against electric waves. I’ve read some- 
where that brain vibrations, or thoughts, 
are like electricity. I thought the insu- 
lation might help.” 

“Probably right. Still, I’m going to 
experiment.” 

Farrington reached forward into the 
box, then withdrew his hands sharply, 
gazing at blistered fingers. 

“Hm-m-m — energy of sorts. No heat ; 



MATHEMATICA 



67 



just a sort of vibratory action — fric- 
tion. This gets interesting.” 

He turned about and moved among 
the masses of his professional appa- 
ratus, finally pulling forth a small, in- 
sulated crane. With expert fingers he 
guided the machine so that it finally 
lifted the Vulcanian metal from its bake- 
lite bed and laid it down on a sheet 
of two-inch-thick rubber a little dis- 
tance away. 

“Have a care!” Dawson warned him 
timorously. “Don’t think up any tigers 
or anything of that sort ” 

He broke off, and I simultaneously 
let out a yell. Distinctly for a moment 
I beheld a vision of a tiger itself amidst 
the laboratory fittings. Then, even as 
I blankly stared, it altered its shape, 
transformed, became a peculiarly ob- 
long mass of rotating stripes — and was 
gone. I swallowed hard. 

“Astounding!” Farrington breathed, 
quickly moving back to the metal. “That 
thought of yours took instant effect. 
That transformation business puzzles 
me just a bit.” 

He ceased to speak and gingerly 
guided the metal back into its box. 

“Thought reflection,” he went on, 
looking down at the stuff in its case. 
“Most extraordinary. Like a mirror 
reflecting the image of oneself. But 
how the devil does it do it ? Manifestly 
the stuff is electrical in some unheard- 
of manner, and is composed of some 
element having only a very vague par- 
allel in uranium. I wonder Can 

it be, perhaps, a race of beings in a 
universe, or on a world unknown? 
Strange beings of far higher intellect 
than ours?” He stopped and smiled 
ruefully. “Guess I’m getting flavored 
with the fantastic stories of the day. 
Next thing I know I’ll be thinking up 
some weird creature with a bulging 
cranium and calling him an idiotic name 
like Pelathon, or something of that na- 
ture.” 

He slammed down the lid of the box. 



FOR nearly a year, Dr. Farrington 
— assisted rather inadequately by me at 
intervals — struggled to analyze the mys- 
tic metal of Vulcan, yet he found out 
very little concerning it. It baffled his 
powers of trained reasoning; it per- 
formed feats that were at variance with 
all normal science. The creation of ma- 
teriality out of thought was something 
that, not unnaturally, had him guess- 
ing. And the inevitable transforma- 
tions of these literal brain children into 
visible mathematical and geometrical 
conceptions that afterward dissolved 
was absolutely beyond all understand- 
ing. 

So, at the end of twelve months, he 
was little nearer. The metal was a sci- 
entific enigma, and as such was finally 
relegated in its bakelite case to the sec- 
tion perfunctorily labeled “unclassi- 
fied.” 

Then there came into this strange web 
of mystery the most remarkable visitor 
Earth had ever known. The occurrence 
happened almost a year to the day of 
the coming of the metal into Farring- 
ton’s hands. He was seated in the labo- 
ratory, actually discussing the metal 
with me, when the visitor arrived. 

We first became aware of his coming 
by the gradual mergence out of thin 
air of a hazy enigma of machinery — a 
mass of coils, bands, wires and struts of 
gleaming metal that caught the sunlight 
streaming through the glass roof. Si- 
lent, utterly transfixed, the doctor and 
I watched this apparition merge slowly 
into our view, watched the laboratory 
equipment become misty and vague as 
the ghostly machine took on solidity and 
finally became perfectly material. 

Before us there stood the most pecul- 
iar contrivance we’d ever seen. It was 
oblong in shape, not unlike a box of 
highly polished ebony, with the strange 
devices and machinery affixed to its ex- 
terior. It stood perhaps seven feet 
high, and remarkably enough possessed 
easily recognizable windows. 



68 



ASTOUNDING STORIES 



“What the devil ” Farrington 

stopped, helplessly starting forward. 
Then he watched as a section of the ma- 
chine’s wall fell away and there emerged 
into our presence the most fantastic per- 
sonage imaginable. 

In contour he bore a faint resemblance 
to an Earthling. He could not have 
been more than four feet tall, possess- 
ing a pinched and scrawny body clothed 
in tight-fitting scarlet fabric. Then, 
above this ridiculous body came a thin 
neck and colossal head, enormously 
domed and veined, with a puckered lit- 
tle face and beady, all-embracing eyes 
beneath its overhanging bone structure. 
I remember I vaguely wondered how 
he — or it — managed to keep upright at 
all beneath such an egregious super- 
structure. 

For a while he stood surveying us 
in silence; I could feel the physical 
shock from his eyes. The strength of 
his mentality was remarkable. Then he 
spoke, in a voice that was curiously 
mellow considering his undersized lung 
and vocal capacity. What convinced 
me that I was dreaming was that he 
spoke in English! 

“My name is Pelathon,” he volun- 
teered, revealing teeth like those of a 
rabbit. “As I understand it, somebody 
here on this world, in this universe, 
created me and my fellows, and my 
universe, roughly ten thousand millions 
of your years ago. I have left that 
universe, my own world, forever. I 
have journeyed through space and time 
— to here. There can be no mistake. 
My machines cannot be wrong.” 

“PELATHON,” Farrington mut- 
tered, recovering from his first shock. 
“I seem to have heard that name be- 
fore somewhere Oh, but all this 

is absurd!” he went on, laughing 
huskily. “We’re seeing things, Ver- 
non; I’m sure of it. That damned 
metal from Vulcan, probably. This — 



er — fellow speaks English. That’s im- 
possible.” 

“I speak the language of the people 
who populate my world,” the visitor re- 
plied steadily. “It was our language 
in the beginning, and was still our lan- 
guage when I set out on my astound- 
ing journey to try and prove that our 
world, all our universe, only came into 
being through the mathematical multi- 
plication of an original thought.” 

“Pelathon,” Farrington murmured 
again, ruminatively. “I’ll swear I’ve 

heard it before somewhere I think 

you said something about somebody on 
Earth being responsible for your uni- 
verse?” he asked, looking up. “How 
can that be? Your universe, by your 
own telling, died tens of thousand of 
years ago. Millions, I think you said.” 

“When dealing with time one must, 
of necessity, incorporate distance, size 
and relativity,” Pelathon replied calmly. 
“To me — to my instruments — the time 
is certainly of that duration — but to 
you, in a different space-time con- 
tinuum, it may have been but yester- 
day, but yesteryear ” 

“A year!” Farrington interrupted 
suddenly, snapping his fingers. “Pela- 
thon ! Unknown universe !” 

I saw his face blanch as he pursued 
some inner thought. Then, quite sud- 
denly, he gripped my arm, almost hys- 
terically. “Vernon, this fellow comes 
from the very universe I thought of 
more than a year ago! You remember, 
when Dawson first brought the metal 
to us, I concluded our brief investiga- 
tions with a theory about the stuff per- 
haps being the work of some highly 
intelligent mind. I pursued a fantastic 
theory, conceived in my mind’s eye a 
creature identical with this one, with 
the same name! My thoughts must 
have reproduced themselves by that in- 
fernal Vulcanian metal. I hadn’t closed 
the lid of the bakelite box, if you re- 
member ” 

“I remember!” I muttered, hardly 



MATHEMATICA 



69 



knowing what to say. “To this man it 
was aeons ago — to us a year. Do you 
begin to realize — — ” 

“Throughout the ages on our world 
we have believed the entire construc- 
tion of our universe, and those of other 
universes, to be mental and mathe- 
matical,” Pelathon commented. “We 
knew there must be an ultimate source 
for our race. In our early times we 
were exactly akin to you in appearance, 
but with the passage of ages our brains 
increased, naturally, until they formed 
us into the hypertrophied walking in- 
tellects of which I am an example. I 
alone, practically the last of my race, 
had had handed down to me, through 
my ancestors, the belief that all life is 
but thought manifestation combined 
with figures. I built a machine — you 
see it here — attuned to work on the 
principle of mathematical subtraction. 
By that means I was bound to sub- 
tract myself down to the cause of our 
life. I did so. I crossed space, follow- 
ing an arithmetical line, the ship chang- 
ing itself automatically as I did so. I 
came from the infinitely big into the 

microscopically small But my 

search is not yet ended.” 

“No?” Farrington breathed weakly. 
“No. You came into being as well! 
How? What is the reason for all this 
procreation and materialization of. 
mathematics and thought? You created 
our universe ; therefore, somebody must 
have created yours! We have much to 
discuss and discover, my friends. I 
have crossed time and space, and am at 
your service, as intent as you are on 
solving the reason for life being present 
at all. Clearly, you created my peoples 
and myself; our identical language is 
proof enough of that. We caught the 
mathematics of your thoughts — a 

strange, as yet unexplainable transfig- 
uration took place — and there came ma- 
teriality! I even got the name you 
thought of! Yes, we must discuss — 
and plan.” 



“But the entire thing’s so amazing — 
unreasonable!” Farrington breathed. 

“Why so?” Pelathon asked calmly. 

“Well, your coming — your subtract- 
ing machine, as you call it — your ob- 
vious intelligence. It will be necessary 
to inform our world; we shall be 
plunged into an ocean of cross-ques- 
tioning.” 

Pelathon shook his massive dome 
slowly. “I do not desire that, my friend. 
I have found you, the creator of myself 
and universe — to you alone I shall talk. 
With you alone, and your companion 
here, shall I experiment. Do you not 
realize what lies before us? Do you 
not realize that so far, despite my amaz- 
ing journey, I have but scraped the very 
surface of knowledge? We must drive 
on to the cause of everything — to the 
beginning !” 

ii. 

SO CAME Pelathon into our for- 
merly organized lives. By a consider- 
able amount of surreptitiousness, the 
doctor and I managed to smuggle him 
from the laboratory by night and gave 
him residence at my home, where, to 
my single manservant, matters were ex- 
plained satisfactorily and an oath of 
secrecy placed upon him. 

Here, the night after his arrival, 
Pelathon explained his extraordinary 
conception, following a day in which 
he had apparently spent the time making 
curious and complicated calculations on 
an immense sheet of paper. 

“The more I dwell upon the problem, 
the more convinced I become that every- 
thing is purely one original sum in 
mathematics,” he said slowly, looking 
at the doctor and me with his little eyes. 

“I thought you said thought,” Far- 
rington remarked. 

“Truly- — but mathematics and thought 
are the same thing fundamentally. 
Surely your own scientists believe in the 
possibility of everything being an orig- 
inal mathematical thought?” 



70 



ASTOUNDING STORIES 



"They theorize on it, but are not at 
all sure of its truth.” 

“The theory is now substantiated,” 
Pelathon said with assurance. “The 
world of Vulcan, apparently, was de- 
liberately placed in this solar system by 
somebody or something to build up the 
thoughts of somebody equally obscure, 
at the moment. The metal you obtained 
from Vulcan was undoubtedly highly 
energized in some way or another and 
reflects your thoughts just as easily 
when away from the influence which 
lies, presumably, within Vulcan itself. 
I find, from my short studies to-day, 
that your scientists believe matter was 
an accident? Believe that no other 
planet is populated?” 

“Right enough.” 

“Might not the latter belief be ex- 
plained by the fact that the person 
thinking of this particular universe 
visualizes only one planet reproducing 
life exactly akin to his own? There- 
fore, no other planet possesses life?” 
“That’s an idea,” Farrington admit- 
ted, startled. “Incidentally, several 
great scientists do believe — and did be- 
lieve — in our universe being a mental 
conception. Jeans was one of them — 
so was Eddington. Jeans’ conception 
was of the universe being a mathe- 
matician’s thought, mainly because 
everything in the universe can be per- 
fectly explained by mathematics and 
nothing else. He cites in one instance 
the conception of electrons being a sys- 
tem of waves in a three-dimensional 
space. Hence, two electrons require 
six-dimensional space, three electrons 
nine dimensions, etc., all of which is al- 
most beyond the conception of an aver- 
age brain, which again would point to 
pure thought and mathematics by the 
original conceiver. For another thing, 
it is never explained why one cannot 
annihilate a thought. Doesn’t it seem 
likely that that is the original essence 
of life which nothing can change?” 
“Possibly,” Pelathon assented 



thoughtfully. “All the manifestations 
of thought are inexplicable. We can 
think of things impossible in practicabil- 
ity ; we can accomplish feats which ma- 
terial matter cannot. The more I think 
on it the more do I become convinced 
that all of it can be traced to a mathe- 
matical fundamental. Indeed, the fact 
that I came here by pure subtraction of 
figures, convinces me. In my universe, 
as I have said, your universe is but an 
atom. So, it appears the answer lies in 
the infinite small.” 

“It seems the best course would be 
to visit Vulcan,” I commented. 

“Exactly so.” Pelathon nodded. 
“You have space travel, I observe. The 
heat of the Sun near Vulcan is very in- 
tense, I understand; therefore, I shall 
prepare a solution to cover the space 
ship. My solution will absorb heat 
radiation and create an equable tem- 
perature. Also, I shall equip the space 
ship with machines similar to those on 
my subtracting machine.” 

“Well?” Farrington asked. 

“We do not know for certain what 
we may find within Vulcan. We shall 
take instruments to break it open and 
enter; I shall prepare further mathe- 
matical machines to separate the surface 
of the asteroid. Then, once within, we 
may never return.” 

“But why not?” I demanded. 
“Because, as I have already said, the 
fundamental of creation lies in the infi- 
nitely, unimaginably small — lesser than 
the electron; lesser than the possible 
electrons within electrons; lesser than 
anything we can conceive. Just as the 
essence of energy lies within the atom, 
so I feel that the essence of creation 
lies within something else. If we are 
to pursue this something to the end of 
the space-time span we may never re- 
turn. You understand?” 

Farrington and I nodded silently. 
“You are both men of science,” Pela- 
thon went on. “Are you prepared to 
sacrifice your liberty, perhaps your lives. 



MATHEMATICA 



71 



for this exploration? Remember that 
you will lose your own universe for all 
time, just as I have done with mine. 
I thought my journey would end here, 
and so far as my own universe is con- 
cerned it has. But I find myself in the 
midst of an even deeper problem. I’m 
going on, and if you love your profes- 
sion you will do likewise and seek the 
explanation for the mystery of thought 
and life.” 

That was an invitation that took some 
accepting, I can tell you. For nearly 
two hours Farrington and I weighed 
the pros and cons, and at last, mainly 
by reason of the intense mystery that 
lay before us, we gave our consent — 
which Pelathon took with his usual im- 
mobility. 

It was decided ultimately that we 
would set out for Vulcan, secretly, in 
two weeks’ time. There was no reason 
for the world to know our object — we 
probably would be misunderstood, any- 
how. Besides, we had to keep Pelathon’s 
presence unknown. A man of his pow- 
ers and birth was certainly too valuable 
to lose upon the untrained masses mak- 
ing up the population of the electron 
called Earth. 

III. 

THROUGH the ensuing days Far- 
rington and I pursued our normal work 
— with due arrangements for a long 
vacation within a fortnight — and 

watched, upon our return to my home 
every evening, the progress of Pelathon 
with the various instruments, chemicats 
and ingredients- we brought for him 
from the laboratories. His own strange 
machine we had also had moved over, 
and he had gradually dismantled it. 

He was singularly reticent to explain 
his heat-nullifying substance. In appear- 
ance it was more like aluminium paint 
than anything else, but by its atomic 
constitution, arranged in a manner 
known only to Pelathon, it absorbed heat 
rays, dissipated a certain quantity of 



them, and retained the remainder — leav- 
ing an equable, almost thermostatic tem- 
perature, no matter what heat was ap- 
plied. It was certainly effective. We 
placed a sheet of glass, coated with the 
stuff, in the blast furnace, yet when 
we took it out it was no warmer than 
the glass of an oil cycle lamp. 

So, as far as Pelathon manufactured 
the stuff from the materials at his dis- 
posal, Farrington and I, by night, 
sprayed it over the space machine that 
had been loaned to us by the authorities 
for our vacation. They were under the 
impression we were taking a much- 
needed holiday at Ralsingford, leading 
city of Mars. 

Later came the assemblage of Pela- 
thon’s astounding mathematical ma- 
chines, both for opening up Vulcan and 
subtracting us to the infinite small. I 
cannot explain how they worked ; I 
freely admit it. To me the machines 
were an incomprehensible jumble of 
bars, keys, little bowls filled with tick- 
ing mechanism, rotating shafts, oil 
baths, and a titanic switchboard supplied 
with all manner of geometrical and alge- 
braical numerals, to each of which was 
affixed a filigree of fine, glittering 
platinum wires. This effort to subtract 
figures from nowhere, apparently, was 
something best left beyond my dumb, 

mortal brain Everything went 

without a hitch. Nobody suspected a 
thing. 

We took off quietly on August 6, 
1981, and that was the last we ever saw 
of the Earth known to normal man. 

OUR JOURNEY was accomplished 
entirely without incident — save that we 
passed the Earth-Mars space liner on 
the way. Certainly we had a little diffi- 
culty in calculating the necessary figures 
to land us on the whirling planetoid, 
turning one burnished face to the dan- 
gerously near Sun. I doubt if we should 
have ever made it had it not been for 
Pelathon’s almost uncanny skill. Thanks 



72 



ASTOUNDING STORIES 



to that we landed safely in the twilight 
belt. Before us, through the windows, 
stretched a landscape of solid metal, the 
bisected Sun, flaming with prominences 
and corona, fixed immovably at the 
very near horizon. Beyond doubt, Vul- 
can was a man-made world. 

For some time Pelathon stood in si- 
lence, surveying the strange sight; then 
he moved to the switchboard of his 
subtractor. Without hesitation he moved 
the switches and, before our eyes, a 
square nearly half a mile square sud- 
denly began to evaporate into thin 
emptiness and was gone, as though it 
had never been. There remained a 
black and uninviting aperture. 

“Now,” Pelathon murmured, “we 
shall see what lies within.” 

Farrington and I stood watching in- 
tently as the ship rose very slightly from 
the metal ground and began to move 
forward. With extreme care Pelathon 
guided the vessel until it reached the 
aperture, then began to lower it down, 
simultaneously switching on high-pow- 
ered searchlights. 

“Machinery!” Farrington ejaculated 
in amazement, pointing. “And what 
machinery !” 

Pelathon’s expression did not change. 
For myself, I was speechless. 

Below us, at a seemingly enormous 
depth, couched in the gloom of that 
strange world, there reposed the most 
extraordinary, the most complicated 
machinery on which I had ever set eyes. 

It covered the entire floor of Vulcan 
— or else the spherical walls. Machines 
which in the main had no Earthly sim- 
ilarity, save that a few transformers and 
generators were dimly suggestive. The 
remainder consisted of countless thou- 
sands of cables extending upward to 
Vulcan’s sunless side, all of them lead- 
ing back unerringly to one gigantic ma- 
chine in the approximate center of this 
mechanical wilderness. 

About this Cyclopean monster were 
grouped others, bristling with tubes, 



geared wheels, obviously moving en- 
gines, shanks, well-lubricated connect- 
ing rods, enigmatic pistons — the whole 
similar indeed to the works of some 
behemoth and futuristic clock. 

As we dropped lower, toward a clear 
space, the blurred details took on out- 
line. We realized we were descending 
into no accident of a world, but into a 
veritable interplanetary power house, 
perfectly controlled — obviously re- 

motely. We tried to conjecture where 
the mind was back of all this com- 
plexity, and, not unnaturally, failed com- 
pletely. 

“Obviously, the central machine is 
directly responsible for the conveyance 
to the asteroid’s outer surface of the 
thought-duplicating energy,” Pelathon 
observed, gazing fixedly through the 
window. “You notice, too, perhaps, a 
hazy aura of light — a fine, pearly mist 
— existing between those massive, cop- 
per pillars over there?” 

“What do you think it might be?” 
I asked. 

“Unless I’m entirely wrong it is the 
cause of this machinery. At least my 
figures tell me so. We’ll soon find out.” 
He turned the ship about slightly and 
headed straight for the mystery region. 

The moment we entered it something 
happened. The ship jerked sharply as 
though it had struck a solid obstacle, to 
almost instantly relapse again into 
smooth, onward progress — yet, although 
our instruments revealed no decrease in 
speed, we showed no signs of leaving 
the mist. Yet, judging from our first 
observations, it could not possibly have 
been more than a mile in width ! 

Through the window we could dimly 
behold the machines that had formerly 
hemmed us in, yet the unusual thing 
was that, despite our motion forward, 
those to the frontward never came any 
nearer, nor did those behind visibly re- 
cede. The illusion presented to us was of 
both remaining stationary for a tremen- 
dous length of time. With every pass- 



MATHEMATICA 



73 



ing second we were shooting, by some 
unimaginable process, into an abyss of 
ever-widening space. 

“What the devil’s happening?” I de- 
manded suddenly. 

Pelathon glanced at his mathematical 
subtractor, which was now automatically 
in action. The faintest of -smiles came 
to his wizened face. 

“We are subtracting. Perhaps to call 
it shrinking would be more to the point. 
Our surroundings are becoming gigantic 
by proportion. We are at the beginning 
of a very long journey. Those immense 
machines, I believe, are naught but the 
accruement of very brilliant figuring.” 

“I’ll believe that when I have proof,” 
Farrington murmured. “All this con- 
cept of things being mathematical is too 
much for me! And yet, I must admit, 
it might be posssible ” 

“It is the only solution, I’m con- 
vinced,” Pelathon replied calmly. “I 
shall not attempt myself to outline the 
mystery because my exposition may be 
faulty. I shall leave it until we reach 
that ultimate something that conceived 
it all. Until then we can only wait — 
and watch.” 

SO COMMENCED our journey, 
which took us through a period of time 
and space quite beyond comprehension. 
To correlate normal epochs with appar- 
ent very material hours was naturally 
beyond our mortal senses, yet Pelathon 
assured us that with every passing sec- 
ond inside the ship, thousands of years 
vanished into eternity in the space-time 
continuum in which lay the Earthly uni- 
verse. 

After a time the mist that hemmed 
us in changed into a perfect replica of 
our own Milky Way. We beheld solar 
systems by the countless scores. In 
some manner or other we had become 
free in space — or so it seemed at first 
to my own untrained mind. 

“All we behold is purely the atomic 
formation of the mist,” Pelathon ex- 



plained. “The electrons moving round 
their protons like planets round the 

Earth’s Sun But our journey does 

not end here, otherwise we’d cease sub- 
tracting. As it is, we are still going 
» • 
on. 

He was correct. The electrons and 
protons of the mist divided and sub- 
divided again and again as we pro- 
gressed in our amazing subtraction. The 
conception of Pelathon, that electrons 
existed within electrons, just as elec- 
trons exist inside a planet, was correct. 

We passed these whirling worlds at 
close quarters sometimes, and despite 
their acknowledged speed of fifteen 
thousand miles a second round the pro- 
ton, they seemed now, owing to our 
small size, to move much slower. Upon 
them we glimpsed no sign of life — 
purely barren worlds, apparently devoid 
of all atmosphere and water vapor, 
seeming to have no part in the general 
scheme of things. 

And onward. The machines had long 
since melted into electrons, solar sys- 
tems and nebulous hazes. 

Hours on our chronometer merged 
into days. We took turns sleeping, Far- 
rington and I. Pelathon never slept. 
Our engines had long since been 
switched off. Only the subtractors were 
at work, performing evolutions that 
were quite incomprehensible. All I 
realized was that we were within a free 
body which was patently lessening in 
size to proportions inconceivably micro- 
scopic with every second. Yet we felt 
there was nothing at all wrong with our 
bodies. 

The constant succession of trans- 
formation of electrons into solar sys- 
tems became almost monotonous in time. 

IV. 

IT HAPPENED after the formation 
of perhaps the seventh set of solar sys- 
tems. There came no more divisions. 
Our ship seemed to move very slightly 



74 



ASTOUNDING STORIES 



and pursue a direct course for one bril- 
liantly red world conspicuous among all 
the others — a world about which clung 
a roseate haze, issuing from the planet 
in the form of delicate ripples of mag- 
nificent color. Curiously enough the 
color bands did not lose their intensity 
of depth as they widened. Right until 
they were lost to sight in distance they 
retained their original strength. 

“If it is a world, it is a very beautiful 
one,” Farrington muttered, gazing down 
upon it and its parent sun — or nucleus 
would perhaps be more truthful. “For 
all the world like a perfect ruby set in 
the blackness of velvet. I wonder what 
it contains. Something darned unusual 
if those colors are any guide.” 

“We’ll soon discover,” Pelathon com- 
mented, glancing back at his subtracting 
machinery. “The ship is headed straight 
for that world, drawn to it by the im- 
mutable law of figures. Here, perhaps, 
we shall meet the ultimate!” And his 
little eyes gleamed beneath the great 
dome in scientific anticipation. 

We remained at the observation win- 
dow for a considerable time — perhaps 
centuries for all I know; Certainly time 
did advance because we eventually 
landed with hardly a jar on that strange 
and lovely world, to be immediately 
blanketed in the midst of that fine, 
carmine mist. Gravity, apparently, was 
almost identical to Earth’s. 

The subtracting machinery ceased its 
activity. For a moment there was dead 
and complete silence. Then I turned 
to Pelathon. 

“Well?” I asked. “Do we go out- 
side?” 

He surveyed the instruments. 
“There’s nothing to stop us walking 
right out,” he replied. “Atmosphere 
composition and density is similar to 
Earth’s; so is the gravitation, and the 
temperature is akin to a normally tem- 
perate day. The red mist, of course, 
we can’t explain. If you’re ready, we’ll 



go,” he concluded, with his customary 
speed of decision. 

Still possessing that Earth-born 
sense of suspicion, of preparedness, 
Farrington and I took rifles down from 
the wall — but before we could move to- 
ward the air lock, our rifles — the entire 
control room itself — suddenly became 
transparent, wavered indecisively, and 
vanished as completely as steam from 
boiling water! The three of us stood 
motionless, empty-handed, astounded. 

About us the red mist writhed curi- 
ously as though driven by a strong wind. 
Then, with a speed that was staggering, 
it all congealed abruptly into a solidity, 
building with lightning changes into a 
very material, overpoweringly mighty 
city. 

Around us, above us, towered in- 
vincible skyscraping buildings. My own 
impression was of being watched by 
countless thousands of gleaming win- 
dows catching the light of an unseen 
sun. Then, just as rapidly, the city 
vanished and gave place to billions of 
reproductions of us! We saw ourselves 
repeated endlessly, into an eternal dis- 
tance, in one vast and incredible vista 
that reeled away like an unraveling film 
into the inconceivable remotenesses of 
time and space itself. 

Still we stood dumb, completely over- 
awed. I realized dimly that this was 
no planet, but something sentient, some- 
thing intelligent, and able to juggle with 
time and space in a manner that was 
miraculous. 

I was thinking in this strain when the 
vista of images suddenly extinguished 
itself, and instead, there merged into 
view a being somewhat similar to Pela- 
thon, save that his head was bigger — 
much bigger. Indeed, its dimensions 
were so considerable that he wore a 
curious, cradlelike affair of glittering 
metal to support it; it was fixed firmly 
to his narrow, atrophied shoulders. For 
a long time his almost-hidden eyes 



MATHEMATICA 



75 




“So you came! Well, you have not reached the 
beginning even yet!” 



watched us intently, then — either by 
thought waves., or some other compli- 
cated form of communication — he spoke 
to us: 

“So, you came!” he commented, 
rather enigmatically. And before we 
could even attempt an answer we were 
within a hall of enormous dimensions, 
surrounded by a multitude of scientific 
apparatus, with our peculiar host, if 
such he was, before us. 



“Forgive these changes,” he resumed. 
“Everything is, of course, purely 
thought allied to mathematics. You 
have traveled far, my friends. You 
have courage; you have come to seek 
the ultimate reason for your universe. 
You have found it, but even so you have 
not reached the very beginning even 
yet. I, perhaps, may show you that. 
My name is Si-Lafnor. I am a mathe- 
matician, a demonstrator of equations, 







76 



ASTOUNDING STORIES 



integrals, hyperbolas, etc. I, like you, 
am seeking the creator of mathematics.” 
“Creator of them?” asked Farrington 
in puzzlement. “Is there such a thing?” 
“Why not? No mathematics can 
exist unless somebody or something con- 
ceived them in the first place. You have 
no record in your world, for instance, 
of the originator of mathematics, have 
you ?” 

“We have possible theories, lost in 
dim antiquity,” Farrington answered. 

“Quite useless — and baseless. Mathe- 
matics, life and probably thought, are 
all one. I knew you would come from 
the world of Earth ; I knew, too, that 
the metal of Vulcan would be taken by 
you, Farrington, and that you, in turn, 
by a twist of mathematics, would create 
a mental birth — all unwittingly — namely 
of the universe of which Pelathon here 
is an inhabitant. Remember that only 
certain thoughts reacted on that metal — 
for instance, that of the tiger and Pela- 
thon’s universe. In other cases your 
thoughts had no effect, otherwise your 
laboratory would have been full of 
manifested thoughts. Those thoughts 
that did operate changed immediately 

into progressive mathematics ” 

“But — but where are we?” I asked 
dazedly. “What planet are we on?” 
“This planet has no name. Like any 
other planet it is built up of mathe- 
matics. I am the last of a race of 
mathematicians and, being such, am the 
most advanced of them all. But, before 
I go any further, permit me to refresh 
you after your journey. There! You 
are feeling better, are you not?” 

HOW am I to begin to explain things 
in cold print? Even as Si-Lafnor spoke, 
we were immediately invigorated, as 
though an unknown surge of energy 
had passed through us. He resumed 
with, scarcely a pause, still by that 
method that might have been either 
speech or telepathy. 

“You, Pelathon, being of an advanced 



race, may be able to understand what 
I am about to tell you. You other men 
may even be confused, but I will do 
my best to make it simple. Firstly, it 
is perhaps as well that you understand 
the mathematical concept of eternity, 
explainable in figures easily understand- 
able to all of you. You are naturally 
aware of that elementary freak — the re- 
curring decimal. 

“In the simplest form it is obvious to 
you that a third of ten is three and one 
third; yet, if you reverse the process 
you get the conception of eternity. 
Thus, three and a third. You have 
never yet solved what it is. It is three 
plus three tenths, plus three hundredths, 
plus three thousandths, plus three ten 
thousandths, and so on until the end 
of time. There, my friends, lies eternity 
— and it also leads to the beginning, of 
which I will presently talk. Incidentally, 
my countless reflections of yourselves 
when you arrived here was another 
facet of the recurring decimal system. 
The city was but a figment of triple 
harmonic analysis. 

“Now to the creation of your uni- 
verse. Firstly, the conceptions of your 
Earthly science lean to the theory of 
every electron requiring a three-dimen- 
sional space to itself — hence two require 
six dimensions, etc. In all then, the 
building of dimensions attributable to 
all the countless millions of electrons 
in your universe mounts up into dimen- 
sions inconceivable. You are forced to 
believe, therefore, that the waves asso- 
ciated with dimensions are purely 
mathematical — which is correct. They 
exist in such an order of mathematics 
that you will never understand them. 
You heap confusion on yourselves by 
trying to understand an electron. 

“To you, along with its protonic 
nucleus, it is the foundation of the uni- 
verse — of matter itself. A clever theory, 
certainly. You might even try to build 
instruments to study electrons, only you 
know you’re doomed to failure before 



MATHEMATICA 



77 



you begin. An electron in complete 
isolation would be unknowable. It’s 
only when an electron is interchanging 
energy with some other part of the 
known universe that you become aware 
of its existence. No interchange of en- 
ergy can take place that does not in- 
volve at least one quantum of atom of 
energy. In order to see an electron with 
your instruments you would have to use 
light; a quantum of energy would be 
involved and you’d so completely dis- 
turb the electron as to render it un- 
viewable. 

“So, the more and more you sink 
yourselves into the study of electrons, 
the more baffled you get, until finally 
some of your scientists have glimpsed 
the truth by pronouncing the entire uni- 
verse to be mental. Then, and then 
only, are the paradoxes of physics 
solved, and the theoretical ether reduced 
to a mathematical abstraction. Also, 
you realize then that energy, the very 
basis of matter, becomes the constant 
of integration of a differential equation 
— just another mathematical abstrac- 
tion.” 

“Maybe, but that hardly explains our 
universe,” I put in. 

“To arrive at that point I have to 
explain first your concept of it,” the 
mathematician answered. “In truth, my 
friends, the ether does exist purely as a 
mathematical abstraction — that is to im- 
ply that it exists as a separate thing, 
a background on which to throw the 
calculations of other figures relating to 
specified objects. It is absolutely a gi- 
gantic unknown quantity — an etheric X 
immovably unified to the laws of fig- 
ures. 

“Hence you see that my own creation 
of a mathematical abstraction, used in 
conjunction with my equations, etc., to- 
tals up in finality to the creation of a 
material universe. Everything in your 
universe, you admit, can be relegated to 
a mathematical constant. It has dimen- 
sions, light, mass, energy, gravitation— 



all relegated to figures. Humans, oceans, 
landscapes, everything, are purely fig- 
urative, and can be analyzed into di- 
mensions of length, breadth and thick- 
ness. 

“They move likewise in time and 
space, and, by the building up of more 
figures, create further beings like them- 
selves. Again, take the example of the 
receding galaxies. The problem is easily 
explainable. As the figures accrue and 
multiply constantly the fixed basis they 
started from moves upwards and fur- 
ther away from your conceptions. In 
the galaxies you have the essence of 
figures incarnate. They are multiplying 
perpetually, and will do so toward an 
end which I cannot yet foresee.” 

“BY HEAVEN!” muttered Far- 
rington slowly. “I begin to see now! 
Just like the recurring decimal in an un- 
thinkably advanced form. It goes on 
forever! That explains away all the 
riddles of science, explains away all 
flaws in figures, all materiality, every- 
thing. Purely because our mathematics 
are not advanced enough to understand 
pure figuring, the basis of life and be- 
ing always evades us. Naturally, on 
that basis, the figures must repeat and 
multiply and reform into fresh concep- 
tions constantly, which accounts for 
why my conception of Pelathon’s uni- 
verse came into being.” 

“Precisely that. Electrons do exist, 
to your minds, because they are the vis- 
ible outcome of the mathematics. They 
are the particular basis of figures work- 
ing in conjunction with the etherical ab- 
straction which produces a total whole 
in the form of, to you, an electron. In 
all, as you have seen, there are seven 
sets of electrons, every one of them 
actually a world, but unpopulated, since 
in my original formula of figures I only 
allowed for life fairly similar to my 
own on one world — Earth. 

“Also, there are in all ninety-two con- 
cepts from my one basis of figures. 



78 



ASTOUNDING STORIES 



which concurs exactly with the known 
ninety-two elements in your periodic 
table. Out of those ninety-two con- 
cepts is everything made. The metal of 
Vulcan came in that conception, too. 
It was your missing Element 87. So, 
out of those ninety-two concepts, of 
which only Element 85 still eludes you, 
is built up your bodies, your air, your 
planet — everything, resolving not into 
so many figures totaled on paper, but 
into the actual mathematical form of 
life, materiality and energy. 

“Thought alone is apparently also 
mathematical, since it creates the orig- 
inal figures. You cannot annihilate a 
thought, but you can annihilate matter. 
All the same, here again the truth of 
mathematics is glaringly displayed. De- 
stroy matter and you get energy; de- 
stroy energy and you get matter. Hence 
the sum total remains the same. You 
can never waste anything. In other 
words, you cannot cancel a faultless 
sum !” 

“All that is fairly clear,” I remarked. 
“I see now how everything Earthly and 
universal can be traced to your own 
original mathematics, but I don’t see 
the reason for Vulcan, its machines, and 
the creation of Pelathon’s universe.” 

“Surely that is simply explained, my 
friend. Two years ago, by my own 
time here, I devised the mathematics 
that would produce a universe — with 
these machines here. It was no work 
of mine how those mathematics would 
form. They arrange themselves, if 
properly handled. Mathematics are 
thoughts, remember ! Hence, those 
mathematics produced changes in the 
ether abstraction and built up an entire 
world of machines, known to you as 
Vulcan. 

“Vulcan came before your universe — 
from Vulcan’s outflowing mathematics 
your universe was formed. In the Vul- 
canian machines there existed a haze 
wherein was the link to the original 
source — here. Once that universe was 



formed Vulcan created again out of fig- 
ures an energy duplicating the energy 
existing in the mind of the original con- 
ceiver — myself. Hence, thought became 
reproduced on that particular planetoid. 
Removing a fragment of that world and 
taking it to Earth built up another form 
of figures and you, Farrington, thinking 
of a universe, reproduced, all unwit- 
tingly, another train of constantly multi- 
plying figures that reacted on the ether 
and brought Pelathon’s universe into be- 
ing. Again it multiplied and his race 
came into being. He was clever enough 
to subtract his way back to the source — 
to Earth, just as easily as you would 
subtract yards to inches on paper. You 
in turn traced the mathematical train of 
figures back to the start again — here. 

“Indeed, you were powerless to stop 
doing so, because you came directly to 
zero. You could not have arrived any- 
where else ; such a procedure would have 
been out of alignment with figures. You 
saw the concept of a red world with 
outflowing radiations of color. That 
was purely a figment of my mind, rel- 
ative to the particular figures I was en- 
gaged on at the moment. When you 
arrived here I divided your ship mathe- 
matically, gave a few figure impres- 
sions in the form of Earthly cities to 
impress you. The rest you know. Natu- 
rally, I knew of your coming purely by 
thought alone.” 

“And these machines? What are you 
seeking?” Pelathon asked. “Are you 
not wondering how you came into be- 
ing?” 

“Yes,” Si-Lafnor said slowly. “I am 
wondering. These machines here are 
very similar, in a complex form, to 
yours, Pelathon. They subtract, add, 
multiply — perform arithmetical mir- 
acles. I seek the very beginning.” 

“And you think you can find it?” 
Farrington asked. 

“I have been trying to do so through- 
out my life, just as my ancestors did 
before me. I have already conceived. 



MATHEMATICA 



79 



I think, the necessary mathematical 
computation to take me there. If every- 
thing goes as planned there will ulti- 
mately arrive a point when these ma- 
chines will resolve the required figures 
into the proper answer and I will be 
whipped away into an essence of figures 
at present unknown. Then, and then 
only, shall I find the beginning.” 

“And we?” Pelathon asked quietly. 
“Can we not go with you?” 

“I will try to arrange it. Since you 
have no way back you must come for- 
ward with me. To return to your own 
universe would mean another set of 
figures and the finding of a dimension 
which so far eludes me — the tenth di- 
mension, one of foreshortening powers. 
Then I could send you back. Perhaps 
some day I shall find it ” 

V. 

OUR FUTURE was very uncertain. 
Being Earthly, Farrington and I could 
not altogether resign ourselves to the 
thought we would probably never re- 
turn to our native planet. The very 
idea seemed preposterous, so to a cer- 
tain extent it did not oppress us so 
much as might otherwise have been 
the case. 

Mathematica, as we christened the 
unnamed planet, appeared to have 
neither night nor day — only one uni- 
form red glow that came from a sun 
that was perpetually shielded by rosy 
mist. We passed our time, in the main, 
watching Si-Lafnor at work, marveling 
at his mathematical knowledge, against 
which the efforts of Pelathon were 
promptly relegated to the background. 

While we were with this scientist 
there was no necessity to eat, drink or 
sleep; he attended to such trivial de- 
tails, hence our time was occupied in 
watching the almost constant manifesta- 
tions he built up from pure mental con- 
ceptions, resolved by his uncanny 
machines. 



“If my calculations are correct,” he 
observed, after one particularly long 
spell of work amidst the figures his in- 
struments had built up, “the time is al- 
most here for the transportation into 
the unknown realm. It would be as 
well for you to keep near me, ready 

for any event, so that we may ” 

He stopped. 

A deep, rumbling roar smote upon 
our ears, gathering in intensity with the 
seconds. Before our eyes the colossal 
machinery was shifting and changing 
mysteriously. Bands of wavy light 
vibrated about the whole gargantuan 
mass. The air literally rippled mathe- 
matics, in a manner which I find im- 
possible to describe. 

“It is here!” Si-Lafnor exclaimed 
sharply. “Quickly! Join hands! We 
must be in contact!” 

We obeyed, and stood waiting on the 
trembling floor. My heart was ham- 
mering violently against my side as I 
beheld strange, eddying mists gathering, 
mounting and melting in the air. I tried 
with my miserable brain to understand 
it all, and naturally failed. I could only 
dimly apprehend that an immense trans- 
figuration of mathematics was taking 
place — a visible solution to a brilliantly 
planned series of figures upon an ab- 
stract background, the exact nature of 
which I could not even guess. 

Faster and faster the giant machines 
raced themselves, ticking, checking, 
pulsating. I held on grimly to Si-Laf- 
nor’s tentaclelike hand — then, to my ut- 
ter amazement, he vanished from my 
grip, became transparent and disap- 
peared completely into emptiness. At 
the same instant the machines ceased 
action. The hall was as it had ever 
been — the uproar was over. The only 
difference was the absence of our host. 

I glanced at Farrington, open- 
mouthed. Pelathon began to move 
thoughtfully about, stroking his im- 
mense dome. Then presently, after a 



80 



ASTOUNDING STORIES 



glance at the machines, he returned to 
us. 

“The explanation is fairly simple — 
indeed, it could not have happened in 
any other way,” he commented quietly. 
“Si-Lafnor based his mathematics on 
the presence of only himself. Although 
he knew of our coming, he obviously 
created his particular figurative scheme 
before he was aware of the fact. Hence, 
when the desired solution was reached 
— or dissolution, as the case may be — 
it applied only to him, whirling him 
away into the unknown, leaving us here 
to grapple with things alone.” 

“But how do we even start to grap- 
ple?” I asked worriedly. “We don’t 
even know where to begin!” 

“I will turn my own abilities to deriv- 
ing the necessary figures to return us 
to our native planets — if at all possible,” 
Pelathon answered slowly. “I have 
learned much from Si-Lafnor’s expla- 
nations and methods. I may be able to 
achieve something.” 

“If you can, all to the good,” said 
I. “The doctor and I are powerless 
to aid you. We don’t understand 
enough.” 

PELATHON, however, brilliant 
though his mind undoubtedly was, per- 
formed only the very simplest mathe- 
matical feats compared with those of 
our departed host. True, he did man- 
age to create curious machines, with the 
aid of the mathematical monsters hem- 
ming him in, and they in turn built up 
equational sequences, but in the main 
they were useless and conveyed no in- 
telligible meaning. 

Then again, we were faced — Farring- 
ton and I — with the problem of nourish- 
ment. We were powerless to invent 
anything, and Pelathon was so at sea 
he was unable to devise how to supply 
us with renewed energy. Since he had 
given up eating, drinking and sleeping 
aeons before, he was perfectly in order, 
but Farrington and I came to the grim 



conclusion that death awaited us on 
Mathematica unless something arrived 
very quickly. 

But nothing did arrive. My friend 
and I sank lower mentally and phys- 
ically as time went on, and all poor 
Pelathon’s frantic efforts to save us re- 
sulted in absolute failure. As a con- 
sequence, my friend and I both died, 
rather painfully, too, as I remember, 
our last vision being of the distracted 
Pelathon figuring and computing with 
all the power at his command. 

I repeat, paradoxical though it may 
sound — we died ! At any rate, we both 
performed an astounding transition 
from worn-out physical Earthly bodies 
into another state which I can only 
presume was beyond death itself. We 
died with the thought of the beginning 
burning into our minds. 

It was a curious sensation, that pass- 
ing from bodily trammels. I died a few 
minutes before Farrington, yet after- 
ward we were not separate entities, pos- 
sessing new bodies, nor were we rel- 
egated to some curious babyhood on an- 
other planet. 

Instead, our respective mentalities 
were merged into one! In this state 
we possessed no bodies whatever, nor 
had we — or should it be I? — any con- 
cept of anything save infinite blackness. 
Mathematica had vanished from com- 
prehension with its equations and cumu- 
lative figures. I was in a void, a dual 
being, still possessing full knowledge 
of what had gone before, yet shut off 
from that state utterly and completely 
by unknown dimensions and spatial dif- 
ferences. 

Perhaps this conviction of voidlike 
infinity lasted for millennia; perhaps 
only for seconds. Then, very gradu- 
ally, there began to seep into my in- 
tellect, which seemed quite unimpaired 
— indeed highly improved — a knowl- 
edge of the amazing truth. 

Death had changed the order of 
mathematics relative to the particular 

AST-5 



MATHEMATICA 



81 



bodies, or mathematical solutions, 
known as Dr. Farrington and myself. 
Hence we were liberated, existing as 
thought only, drifting on a tideless sea 
of intellect toward the central point, the 
absolute nucleus of all mental creation 
— where, presumably, Si-Lafnor had al- 
ready gone. 

The more the impression presented 
itself, the more convinced I felt that it 
was the truth. Then, after a seeming 
eternity, gray light began to spread 
athwart the blackness. My mind focused 
on that tiny stretch, watching it grow, 
increase in strength and size, until at 
last the blackness of infinity had 
changed to snow-white brilliance. 

The sense of movement ceased. I 
had the impression of being very still. 
Followed a transient little jerk and a 
fleeting sensation of pain — then, to my 
dumfounded amazement, I was in pos- 
session of a body again, unclothed cer- 
tainly, but nevertheless a body, of such 
a shape and appearance that it appalled 
me. I was monstrous, badly formed, 
like some mad and crazy caricature of 
an Earthling. Beside me, lying flat on 
a table of polished metal, was the gro- 
tesque creature whom I assumed was 
Dr. Farrington. 

Rather to my surprise I found vocal 
cords; I spoke with considerable effort. 

“Doctor, it is you?” I asked quickly, 
staring at his atrocious face. 

He nodded assent, glanced down at 
himself, then up at the machines that 
were grouped overpoweringly about us. 
Thus his gaze moved, until it came to 
an astounding apparition poised within a 
clear space between the predominant 
instruments. It had no shape identical 
two seconds together. It was an abso- 
lute riot of conceptions — I can describe 
it no other way. One moment it was 
two-dimensional, then receded into a 
one-dimensional dot. Afterward it 
passed into a composite of eight or nine 
dimensions, hazy, branch arms reced- 
ing into invisibility as unknown hyper- 

AST-6 



spaces closed about it. Now it was all 
eyes ; now all triangles — changing, 
warping, shifting. A mad phantasm, a 
paradox of space and time. 

“What — what in hell’s name is it?” 
I breathed weakly. 

“I don’t know,” Farrington muttered. 
“We died all right — and we live again 
in these — these horrible bodies. They 
look as though they’re thrown to- 
gether!” He stopped. Involuntarily 
his eyes were chained to the riddle in 
mid-air before us. 

WE ROSE to our elbows, and as we 
did so there appeared in front of us, 
blotting out the ceaselessly changing ap- 
parition, a composite series of symbols 
and signs, their basis obviously mathe- 
matical. Yet, despite the fact, either 
by reason of sharpened mentality, or 
else because they could only be inter- 
preted one way, Farrington and I both 
read obvious words in them! I am in- 
clined to believe, in this later stage of 
writing, that they were mathematics ap- 
plying solely to the figures which had 
created our bodies, and therefore were 
quite understandable. 

In other words, actual speaking is 
purely a series of vibrations in air which 
can be analyzed down to figures of 
wave length. Here we had the con- 
summate example of the fact. I re- 
member I had a passing surprise when 
I considered that I was breathing air; 
that gravitation was normal. Evidently 
we were on a world of some kind, then 
we 

Silently we read the messages that 
paraded so strangely before us. 

“You are both solutions in the low- 
est form of mathematics. Formerly, on 
the world you named Mathematica, the 
particular figure-formula to which you 
applied had reached its ultimate solu- 
tion and you could go no farther. En- 
ergy, in the terms of figures, failed you 
and you died — to use your own version. 
When those bodies ceased to exist and 



82 



ASTOUNDING STORIES 



your minds were liberated, you built up 
a fresh series of figures — albeit subcon- 
sciously — because you died with the de- 
termination to reach the beginning, and 
that very thought built the necessary 
formula, aided by the machines of Si- 
Lafnor, which were also trained on the 
conception of moving to the beginning. 

“As a consequence, the figures were 
correct and, after the second division of 
your minds into separate units again the 
figures built themselves up upon solu- 
tion into the crude, overbalanced bodies 
you possess now and, naturally, brought 
you here — since that was the original 
object back of it all. 

“I am the original mathematician. 
There are no figures prior to me. I 
came out of a realm of supramathe- 
maticas, out of a time and space be- 
yond your conceiving ; a circle that 
never began and that will never end — 
a circle of consummate perfection. 
That, in mathematics, is myself. 

“My purpose? The creation of 
mathematics, which are actually 
thoughts. Out of those mathematics I 
create. I live purely by the law of fig- 
ures. My object during my ageless 
existence is to strive toward the ulti- 
mate cancellation of all figures! Only 
by that method can I release myself 
from an eternity of mental and figura- 
tive toil. Everything you have seen, 
that you have thought, that is — is of my 
configuration.” 

“So this is the beginning!” I breathed. 
“And we, incredibly distant creations of 
your figures, gaze upon you!” 

“Yes — but such a state shall not con- 
tinue. I resent the solutions of my fig- 
ures appearing before me to question 
their origin. One other came before 
you — one Si-Lafnor, another extremely 
complex series of figures which I orig- 
inally built a long time ago. My pur- 
pose with him was to break him down 
into fresh numerical values, divide him 
into new computations, make of him 
one grand multiplicity. Unfortunately, 



he had mastered the knowledge of the 
figures that created him and, by a bril- 
liant process of reasoning, evolved him- 
self into an indivisible, uncancelling sum 
— thereby securing safety forever ! 
Only multiplication, division and sub- 
traction are possible in figures. Can- 
cellation cannot take place if the figures 
are built up to withstand it. It is an 
impossible feat. That is why the fig- 
ures I originally built up perpetually in- 
crease their powers and multiply auto- 
matically. 

“But with you it is different. There 
is nothing to prevent me breaking you 
up into new conceptions. I can de- 
stroy your bodies, annihilate the very 
figures that form your minds, those fig- 
ures being of a far-advanced order.” 

“Which explains, I suppose, why 
thought cannot be annihilated by ordi- 
nary methods?” I asked quickly. 

“Exactly. Thought consists of my 
figures. You cannot destroy thought 
because I am the basis. Destroy me, 
and you destroy the infinite and the in- 
finitesimal simultaneously. I wish you 
no harm. It is purely that my exist- 
ence depends upon figures. You would 
both make the bases of very good uni- 
verses. Your solutions are admirable 
for the groundwork.” 

“Say,” I muttered, glancing uneasily 
at Farrington, “this glorified proposition 
in Euclid means business!” 

“Do you propose escaping? Purely 
by my own graciousness you have an 
atmosphere about you — the concept of 
a world — of machinery. All purely for 
your edification. In one second of your 
very simple time calculation I could 
change everything — fling you into ex- 
tinction. Crush you into infinitesimal 
dust, or transform you into recurring 
figures that would mean an endless life 
of anguished computing, striving to find 
the way back. 

“No, my friends. Si-Lafnor was 
clever enough with his mathematics; so 
much so that he found the tenth dimen- 



MATHEMATICA 



83 



sion, a problem which apparently had 
long evaded his solving. But with you 
it will be a simple task to transform 
you. After all, why not?” 

VI. 

THE SYMBOLS faded. Once again 
that changing apparition appeared be- 
fore us, shifting, indeterminable — a 
thing of angles, figures, and uncanny 
trigonometry. My brain began to buzz 
as I tried to follow the integrals and 
progressions that the being worked out 
before us. I, who had never been ac- 
customed to anything but fairly ordi- 
nary mathematics, was soon lost. 

Farrington, though, seemed to un- 
derstand a trifle more. His terrible 
face was strained and earnest. Then 
he spoke, huskily: 

“Unless I’m clean wrong, Vernon, 
he’s arrived at the point where the total 
of his calculations will divide the figures 
of which we’re built up into nothing. 
Come on — we’ll make a material dash 
for it !” 

I needed no second invitation. We 
had no idea where to go, of course, 
but anything was better than watching 
doom in the form of pure figures build 
up before our very eyes. We slid from 
the flat metal table on which we’d been 
lying and rushed toward the door of the 
place. Immediately, however, a wall of 
metal manifested in front of us. 

We fell back. Machines which moved 
on ponderous legs came from nowhere 
and traveled in our direction. Once 
again the symbols danced before our 
eyes. 

“Why attempt such methods? You 
cannot defeat my figuring. I will soon 
have the solution that will cancel you 
for all time ” 

I stopped still, shuddering involun- 
tarily. So did Farrington. I began to 
feel something tearing relentlessly at 
my brain and body — yet nothing was 
visible. With a shock I realized that 



the original mathematician had reached 
the stage where the electrons — if I can 
call them such — comprising the atoms 
of my body were being changed into 
fresh numerical values, thereby bring- 
ing Farrington and me to the edge of 
dissolution. Indeed, I think at this 
stage that we had no electrons in our 
make-up, but something else more 
relevant to a complicated agglomeration 
of advanced figures. 

Then something happened. Out of 
the emptiness before the wall that tow- 
ered before us a figure merged. My 
heart leaped for joy as he took on 
shape. 

“Si-Lafnor!” I gasped hoarsely. 
“Thank goodness ! Look, Farring- 
ton!” 

“Do nothing — stand still,” came Si- 
Lafnor’s telepathic command — then he 
and the original mathematician, literally 
father and son of incredible mathe- 
matics, became absorbed in the most 
terrific mental battle of computation. 

Though we could not see the figures 
that passed between them, we felt the 
awful force of their conflict. Our 
bodies were torn and racked with pain 
as one or other gained the mastery. 

Si-Lafnor’s eyes vanished under the 
bulging contours of his forehead. He 
stood completely rigid, tussling, strug- 
gling, pitting every ounce of his as- 
tounding powers against the overpower- 
ing figuring of his original computator. 

Then something seemed to snap. A 
sense of delightful comfort suddenly 
stole over me. The wrenching at brain 
and nerve ceased. I breathed hard, re- 
covering my strength, and, to my sur- 
prise, found that my body was no longer 
as large and repulsive as it had been — 
neither was Farrington’s. We had both 
changed considerably. 

Si-Lafnor smiled very faintly as he 
looked at the changing riddle that hung 
over us. 

“It is over,” he commented. “The 



84 



ASTOUNDING STORIES 



original can do nothing. I have trans- 
formed you, even as I did myself, into 
indivisible creations of figures that no 
mathematical power can dissolve. Not 
one figure will cancel. You are safe — 
forever.” 

“Correct,” agreed the symbols of the 
original. “Si-Lafnor, you win. Not 
because your mathematics are neces- 
sarily cleverer than mine — that would 
be impossible — but because you evolved 
a quicker way than I to reach your 
solution. One day, when I finally solve 
the greatest problem toward which I 
am always struggling, you will become 
the first mathematician. I can do no 
more. You are indivisible.” 

“Well, what happens now?” I asked 
slowly. “Being indivisible is an ad- 
vantage, of course, but how do we get 
away from here?” 

“I have found many things since we 
arrived here at the beginning,” Si-Laf- 
nor replied slowly. “As you are already 
aware, I arrived at the computation of 
the tenth dimension, a riddle that had 
long puzzled me. By its aid space and 
time foreshorten to a fraction of their 
original extension. I was indeed work- 
ing out_ further problems in the un- 
touchable safety of the dimension when 
I became aware of your own presence 
and struggle. I came to aid you. Now 
I shall take you back to Mathematica. 
There is no reason why I cannot per- 
form the necessary figures to transport 
you. I believe we will arrive and find 
my world only a little older. Besides — 
I may now be able to return you to your 
own world.” 

ONCE AGAIN he plunged into con- 
centration, and little by little a gray 
and indeterminable mist began to creep 
about us, gathering opacity with each 
passing moment. Presently it infolded 
us completely. We held each other’s 
hands, and waited. Si-Lafnor was 
presently lost to sight completely, but 
the slow and indisputable changes about 



us were alone indication of his supreme 
mental efforts. 

The grayness changed to black. We 
became aware that our bodies were 
floating free in absolute space, yet there 
was no sensation of cold. Later we 
learned that the change in our bodies 
to indivisibility had rendered us im- 
mune to all things — space-cold included. 
Nothing could annihilate us, unless it be 
some incomputable figurative system. 

The blackness continued. There were 
no visions of stars and planets or 
nebulae; they seemed peculiar only to 
the planetary universes of which that 
of Earth’s was but one in millions. 
Lower, in those intra-atomic regions we 
beheld no such evidences, presumably 
because we were beneath the microscop- 
ically small, shifting in the midst of 
the abstract called ether. 

Gravitation, if there was any, had no 
effect on us either in that curious fore- 
shortening dimension. Indeed, I am in- 
clined to think that tenth dimension 
existed purely as a mental conception 
and was devoid of all the figures that 
normally make up dimensions, matter 
and energy. 

However, whatever the causes and 
effects of that strange transition, we 
ultimately merged back into Si-Lafnor’s 
original laboratory, there to find a fallen 
figure lying at the base of the mighty 
machines that still calculated and oper- 
ated with endless precision — building, 
building, into goodness knows what ! 

“Why, it’s Pelathon!” exclaimed 
Farrington, running forward, lifting the 
limp mathematician in his arms. 
“What’s happened to him?” 

Si-Lafnor advanced slowly and looked 
down at him. Then he shrugged his 
attenuated shoulders. 

“He is neither dead nor alive,” he 
pronounced. “Somehow, probably in 
trying to build up certain figures with 
these machines, he has placed himself in 
a state of suspended animation, which 
will last until I can create the neces- 



MATHEMATICA 



85 



sary divisibility to break the effect. 
Most unfortunate for him. Later, I 
will try to revive him. Presumably not 
any considerable time has elapsed since 
our departure. There are your own 
dead bodies over there, just as you left 
them.” 

Farrington and I glanced at our 
corpses, then turned away, oddly 
nauseated. 

“My effort now,” Si-Lafnor went on, 
when Pelathon had been gently laid back 
on the floor, “will be to return you to 
your space and time. I cannot return 
you to the actual Earth, that would be 
impossible — but I can return you to a 
world almost identical, thanks to the 
assistance of the tenth dimension. I 
will build up another series of figures 
identical to those that formerly created 
your universe, and so create another 
universe. During that time you will be 
traveling through space and time, 
through the tenth dimension, and will, 
if my figures fruitify as I expect, merge 
on to that world at the appropriate 
period. 

“Also, your bodies will change from 
these grotesque monstrosities — brought 
about by haphazard subconscious figur- 
ing — into those normal to Earthlings. 
But remember, you are henceforth in- 
divisible — immortal. I made you in- 
capable of cancellation, and that can 
never be altered.” 

“And when will the return take 
place?” Farrington asked eagerly. 

“In approximately twelve of your 
Earthly hours you will commence the 
journey. For that period please do not 
converse with or disturb me. I must 
concentrate — deeply.” 

VII. 

THOSE LAST HOURS on Mathe- 
matica were undoubtedly the most re- 
markable that Earth-born men — or 
minds — ever spent. 

Farrington and I, our natural tired- 



ness revived by Si-Lafnor, stood aside 
and watched him work. And very 
amazing work it was, too ! We saw the 
fundamentals for the creation of the 
second universe take place before our 
eyes, though how it was done con- 
founded us both utterly. 

We saw the mammoth machines re- 
sponding to the mathematician’s every 
thought. 

He sat at the small control board, 
the droning monsters grouped about 
him, monsters that were literally the 
sheer essence of resolved conceptions. 
They moved ; they altered ; they created 
energies, magnetisms, formulas, angles 
— all manner of composite things, work- 
ing their unforgettable traceries of mas- 
ter equations and supramathematics on 
the background of endless abstract. I 
smiled faintly as I tried to conceive the 
mind motivating Si-Lafnor, as I tried 
to fathom the knowledge and concen- 
tration he must possess to be able to 
perform such feats. 

Hour after Earthly hour he sat at 
the control board, unmoving, eyes shut 
for the greater part of the time, huge 
dome brightly lighted by the strange, 
all-inclusive radiation that came from a 
carmine mist above the titanic hall. Far- 
rington and I could easily have wearied 
had it not all been so fascinating — then 
at last the master mind arose and turned 
to us. 

“It is complete,” he said quietly. 
“The figures necessary are computed, 
and are even now multiplying upon 
themselves. I have endeavored to re- 
produce an exact duplicate of the orig- 
inal conception that brought your uni- 
verse into being. Naturally, while I 
am still myself part of figures I am not 
infallible — I am not pure evolved mind 
like the original mathematician — and for 
that reason I may have made trifling 
errors of judgment here and there, but 
I do not believe they will affect you. 
You will both move through the tenth 
dimension to this universe I am build- 



86 



ASTOUNDING STORIES 



ing and will arrive there with proper 
bodies.” 

A silence fell — then he spoke again, 
steadily : “Are you ready ?” 

Farrington and I nodded and moved 
to the special area beneath the machines 
which Si-Lafnor indicated. 

For a space we stood looking at each 
other — we, tiny brains from an un- 
imaginably distant world; he, the 
penultimate intellect of creation itself. 
Eyes met. 

“You have seen much, and learned 
much,” he murmured. “For your own 
sake, I hope you never return here. 
Stay in the world you will find — im- 
mortal. Through your endless lives try 
to learn the purpose of these figures. 
Use them, live with them — understand 
them! If I can revive Pelathon from 
his unfortunate trance I will transport 
him back to this world you will find — 
this second Earth. After that he must 
work his own way home. I can do no 
more. And now, farewell.” 

“Farewell,” we answered simultane- 
ously, and watched a living switch de- 
press itself under the force of the mas- 
ter mind’s thoughts. 

Instantly gray ness and gloom were 
upon us, darkening into abysmal night. 
Mathematica reeled out of our concep- 
tion — 

ONCE AGAIN the concept of time 
and space defeated all means of know- 
ing how long our journey through the 
tenth dimension occupied. We only 
realized that a universe must be form- 
ing as we moved — that the ether out- 
side our dimension must even then be 
a mass of shifting figures, multiplying, 
dividing, subtracting, all in perfect in- 
visibility, working out their own incon- 
ceivable pattern. 

Perhaps aeons later we found our- 
selves suddenly upright in a world from 
which the gray mist had cleared. We 
were unclothed, yet possessed of bodies 
that were indeed Earthly, magnificently 



proportioned — indeed far better than 
the bodies we had possessed before. 

Above us was the vault of stars — far 
away in the distance hung the haze of 
a mysterious mass of angles, and crazy, 
almost four-dimensional buildings. A 
city that perpetually changed. Across 
the sky moved and pulsated strange 
shapes akin to cylindrical tubes that per- 
petually widened and contracted and, at 
times, became completely invisible. 
Once, one of these enigmas passed over 
us at a height of perhaps a thousand 
feet, and vanished in the all-embracing 
night. The air was warm, almost trop- 
ical. I turned to look at Farrington’s 
handsome face. 

"Well?” I asked quietly. “What sort 
of a city do you call that ?” 

“I don’t know,” he answered slowly, 
staring above him at the stars. Then 
very gradually he looked back at me. 

“Do you know,” he said, “there isn’t 
a single known constellation in the sky ! 
Nor is there a recognizable planet. 
Venus, Mars, Jupiter — all gone!” 

“But what ” I was bewildered. 

“We’ll see what the city offers,” he 
interposed in a firm voice, and with that 
we both set off across the loose soil to- 
ward that insane flamboyance in the 
distance. Perhaps two hours of hard 
walking, which did not in the least 
fatigue us, brought us to the cliffs over- 
looking the city in the valley below. 

Almost like Neanderthal men gazing 
down on modern New York we 
crouched and stared — baffled, perplexed. 

It was a city utterly beyond our con- 
jectures — an unsol vable puzzle in ad- 
vanced geometry and dimensions. The 
buildings, in the main triangular in 
shape, seemed to own the odd property 
of being able to change their appearance 
constantly. We could see inside them, 
round them, all at the same time. We 
beheld indescribable traffic, and people. 
Such people! They seemed to be a 
mass of transfiguring lines and bars that 
rotated and shifted in mid-air or else 



MATHEMATICA 



87 



moved with stupendous velocity. As to 
the strange light that hung over every- 
thing, we could not even guess at that. 

"What ” Then I looked up with 

a violent start as something touched me 
on the shoulder. I jumped up in utter 
astonishment. 

“Good night — Pelathon !” I exploded. 
"Pelathon ! How did you get here?” 

He shrugged. “An odd twist of time, 

I suppose, brought about I imagine by 
one body taking less time to travel in 
the tenth dimension than two. I have 
been here some time now — I have a 
cave up on the cliffs. Thought infer- 
ence alone told me that you were near, 
and I came to find you. Needless to 
say, Si-Lafnor revived me from my ac- 
cidentally self-inflicted suspended ani- 
mation.” 

“But this place! This isn’t anything, 
like Earth !” I protested hoarsely. 

“I know," he answered slowly. 
“Somewhere, even as Si-Lafnor ex- 
pected, he made an error in his figuring 
— perhaps only one fraction — but in the 
aggregate total it produced something 
utterly unlike the world you once owned. 
This world, what I have seen of it, is 
a profound problem in dimensions. I 
have been studying it. Its peoples are 
friendless and cruel. They have tried 
to destroy me, but I escaped them easily 
— taking with me one or two odds and 
ends that might be useful. I found 
stuff for clothing, some material for 



writing and figuring, and a substance 
that gives perpetual cold light. It has 
made my cave life habitable. Food, of 
course, or sleep, we shall never need 
again. That to you is novel — to me no 
different. Only in one thing are we 
alike now — we are immortal.” 

He paused and looked down at the 
city — saddened, brooding. 

“It is a gigantic punishment,” he said 
at last. “We made a magnificent jour- 
ney — and this is the price. We are all 
three indivisible. Nothing can kill or 
hurt us ; that is why I so easily outwit- 
ted these people when they tried to de- 
stroy me. We have been returned to a 
world in which we have no part — 
fugitives of time and space surrounded 
by untouchable things.” 

He said no more but motioned us to 
follow him. 

So ends my story Through the 

days and nights we have sat in this cave 
gazing down on that mad city below, 
trying — so far vainly — to understand it. 
Farrington and I are like Greek gods; 
Pelathon, too, is much more beauteous. 
And we are deathless ! The grim irony 
of it! 

I have written down my experiences 
with the writing materials at my com- 
mand, but I realize now I have come to 
the end of the ghastly punishment- that 
has been meted out to us. 

We are alone — utterly alone — unless 
Pelathon 




Don Kelz of the I.S.P. 




by Clifton B. Kruse 



Fierce, joyous energy surged through Don Kelz, as he tore into 
the man with the ruthless ferocity of a cornered beast. 



O F THE SEVEN TABLES in 
the Cafe of the Purple Flack, 
six were well crowded with the 
usual roulek-dazed blasters — tough- 
whiskered, glazed-eyed menials from the 
constantly arriving and departing trans- 
ports of Athalon, Mars. 



At the seventh table, well in the 
darkest comer of the cafe, sat a leather- 
faced, taciturn man, garbed in a none- 
too-clean spaceman’s uniform. From 
time to time he took the barest sip from 
the small mug of bitters before him. To 
the few chance remarks which had been 





DON KELZ OF THE I. S. P. 



89 



hurled his way when he had first come 
in, the quiet stranger had given a scant 
suggestion of a smile. But he offered 
no reply and seemed relieved when at- 
tention was turned from him. Never- 
theless, the man’s eyes were unusually 
hard. 

The hour grew late and the dimly 
lighted hall of the Cafe of the Purple 
Flack clouded with a bluish haze from 
the pipefuls of Zulla. The reek of 
roulek would have caused less-hardened 
nostrils to sting and burn. Yet the 
blasters drank on, crowding around now 
three, now two and finally but one of 
the tables whose stacks of chips towered 
even above the tall, full-sized tankards. 

At the last table the four winners of 
the night’s gaming played at breath- 
taking limits. Those who had already 
drunk or gamed away their wages — 
patiently earned upon long, hard jour- 
neys from Earth, Neptune and even 
Pluto — gazed enviously upon the re- 
maining four whom luck had thus far 
favored. 

“Four dockues and a ten-eagle !” The 
large, red-bearded blaster half arose 
from his chair and pounded a gnarled 
fist, with the grimy notes, upon the table. 
“All on the one hand — all of it, I say. 
Come on, Max Durr — my wages on the 
X17 from Pluto to Mars against yours 
upon the scum ship from the asteroids. 
Shoot it all ! Are you a man or do the 
asteroids shrivel a blaster’s nerves?” 

For a tense moment the paunchy, ape- 
like old gray-beard returned the big 
man’s challenging glare. Max Durr’s 
eyes peered cannily from beneath the 
bushy, steel-gray eyebrows. 

“Zahgat!” He spit out in imitation 
of a torp blast. “But no outcast from a 
weevil-infested X-freighter can bluff 
Max Durr.” Deliberately, the old man 
shoved both chips and notes to the center 
of the table. The cafe became charged 
with nefarious expectancy. Big “Bull” 
Gerdigan looked mean. A few of the 
less reckless among the onlookers drew 



back. They did not relish the look in 
Bull Gerdigan’s eyes. 

Cards clicked sharply. For moments 
scarcely a sound was made. From bis 
position in the far corner the silent 
stranger arose quietly. He alone 
seemed unaffected by this dramatic 
silence, and there was a significant 
twitch to the corners of the fellow’s 
unusually firm mouth. His gaze now 
held to the implacable countenance of 
old Max Durr. 

Abruptly, the tension broke. A few 
men dared laugh. Some one exclaimed : 
“Durr takes it. Durr wins the pot !” 

Yet, scarcely had the old spaceman 
stretched forth his bony fingers to claw 
in the money than Bull Gerdigan jumped 
to his feet. The huge giant roared out 
a curse. Immediately the place became 
pitch dark. A second of breathless 
silence — then the thunder of a flame 
pistol made a streak of vivid lightning 
across the room. Men screamed, cursed, 
fought crazily to break away from the 
room. 

Who fired? Who was hurt? Anx- 
ious voices called out the names of 
comrades in fearful, nerve-rasping 
tones. Graddus — Dicus — Gerdigan — 

Heiner! In the midst of the tumult 
some one thought to light a flare torch. 
..The light gleamed its greenish haze. 
Piercing shadows leaped about the room. 
Suddenly a fearful cry cut sharply. 

“Gerdigan ! It’s Gerdigan — dead — 
burned clear through.” 

Deep cries of anger burst forth in 
infernal thunder. 

“Durr. Get him ! He killed ” 

FROM the far end of the room a tall, 
shadowy figure hurtled the tables. 
Swiftly he grasped the flare torch from 
the stiffened fingers which had held it 
aloft — hurled it across the room. Now, 
into the midst of the sweltering, strug- 
gling mass the lithe, strong body tore 
its way. 

“Max Durr !” The fierce whisper was 



90 



ASTOUNDING STORIES 



a command. Bewilderedly the old space- 
man felt the steel clutch of a powerful 
hand upon his arm. The cafe had be- 
come a madhouse. Nevertheless, the 
firm hand guided and shoved him from 
the place. 

The strong body of the strange one 
who directed him on, forced its way 
between the old spaceman and the strug- 
gling blasters. None too soon did old 
Max feel the sting of cold night air 
upon his hot body. The shrill cries 
issuing from the darkened cafe had al- 
ready brought the nearest guardsman to 
investigate. 

“Run — this way. Follow me 1” 

Through the darkness of night the 
two ran with frantic haste. Max Durr 
wheezed from the strain of keeping up 
with his mysterious benefactor. But, 
clearly, the fellow knew this section of 
Athalon thoroughly. They were keep- 
ing well to the black, unlighted alleys, 
and, indeed, so frequent were the -twists 
and turns that the old man was com- 
pletely lost. 

The other halted. Max Durr leaned 
wearily against a dark brick wall. Sharp 
pains cut cruelly into his lungs. He 
moaned as he breathed. 

“I didn’t — kill him.” Max Durr 
forced the words between sucking gasps 
for air. “I swear it.” 

The voice was firm. The stranger 
was not the slightest out of breath 
despite the wild dash. Mutely, old Max 
marveled at the strength and endurance 
of such a one. A key rasped in a lock. 
The stranger was hauling at old Max’s 
arm, indicating that he should enter the 
pitch-black hole. Then, inside the place 
and the door secured again, the stranger 
flicked on a light. 

Max Durr’s eyes widened. He 
stepped back in awe at sight of the 
strong face which held such a deep, 
searching gaze upon him. It was the 
quiet fellow who had spent much of 
the evening to himself at the most dis- 
tant table. 



“Who — who are you?” Old Max 
clawed nervously at his unkempt gray 
beard. 

The younger man smiled. Immedi- 
ately his face became rigidly harsh again. 
He had reached to the inside pocket of 
the worn jacket. Withdrawing the hand, 
he extended it, palm upward, toward the 
befuddled old spaceman. Max Durr 
stared at the small bronzed disk. He 
gasped and looked up quickly to meet 
those piercing black eyes again. 

“The— the ISP !” 

Max Durr seemed to wilt visibly. 
Tremors racked the old body and what 
patches of the bewrinkled face still 
showed beneath the scraggy beard were 
drained of all color. 

“I didn’t kill Gerdigan. Truly I 
swear it. By the glory of the triple sun 
I swear it. Look once, sir. Look at my 
own gun. Never fired has it been this 

day, sir. I tell you ” 

“Never mind that.” The younger man 
raised a hand to check the outburst. “I 
see you appreciate the significance of 
the Interplanetary Secret Police. Fur- 
thermore, you know enough of the 
council’s code of crime procedure to 
realize that the evidence against you to- 
night would put you before a firing 
squad within a week.” 

“Sir, I swear I didn’t ” 

“I know you didn’t kill Gerdigan, 
Durr. I know you are innocent because 
I was watching you at the time. Now, 
understand this. I brought you here 
for a reason. I had singled you out 
from the group at the Cafe of the Purple 
Flack. In fact I had intended follow- 
ing you from the cafe, but this killing 
interfered. We are fortunate that it 
did not quite serve to upset my plans.” 
The old spaceman nodded in slow 
comprehension. He could not quite 
understand it, however. Miraculously 
had he been rescued by this mysterious 
officer of the ISP. Of one thing only 
was old Max Durr not in doubt: un- 
questionably he owed his life to the 



DON KELZ OF THE I. S. P. 



91 



swiftness and strength of this stranger. 
Max Durr stiffened himself to attention. 
His quivering hand flashed a salute. 

“Max Durr, mechanic second class of 
the X942, at your service, sir.” 

The officer laughed. The grotesque 
sincerity of the old spaceman was touch- 
ing. Impulsively he shot out his own 
huge fist, grasped the old man’s hand 
and squeezed it. 

“Don Kelz of the ISP — and, con- 
found your bloody soul, I like you, Max 
Durr. I think that I made no mistake 
in selecting you to-night.” 

“Don Kelz! Don Kelz of the ISP!” 
Max Durr’s back would have brought 
forth a glow of pride to the most ex- 
acting drill sergeant. He attempted a 
salute again, but the quivering fingers 
grasped the wild strands of his gray 
beard instead. His eyes fairly popped 
from beneath the bushy brows. “Say 
the word, Don Kelz. ’Tis the climax 
of a life of faithful service upon the 
council’s transports that has come to 
Mechanic Durr. What is it about, sir ?” 

THE OFFICER was deadly serious 
now. He approached the old spaceman 
slowly ; his deep-set eyes seemed to 
pierce the astounded stare of old Max. 

“You came to the Cafe of the Purple 
Flack with two companions to-night? 

One was a hunchback, deaf and ” 

“Nargate you mean!” Max Durr ex- 
claimed eagerly. “ ’Twas he and the 
white-headed John Oskow. They had 
arrived but this morning upon an old 
freighter from Jupiter.” 

“You’ve shipped with them before,” 
Don Kelz pursued. “Upon a special en- 
gineering transport, the W9, during the 
rehabilitation of Saturn?” 

Max Durr nodded excitedly. “Truly 
and most accurately observed, sir. And 
’twas the very W9 which suddenly 
dropped from her course as we were 
blasting from Saturn. Struck the outer 
ring of Saturn, she did, and the bom- 
barding rocks of the ring smashed her 



torps. Three decks blew to smithereens, 
sir — killing forty blasters and two of 
the space ship’s officers. Nargate was 
in the lunar deck — lost his ears, he did, 
and has heard not the barest chirp of a 
sound since. 

“John Oskow gave his left eye. ’Twas 
hell itself, sir. Had I not been on duty 
repairing an oil gauge upon the plotdeck 
’twould have been the last of old Max 
Durr, too. But what does such a tale 
mean to the ISP? That was eighteen 
Earth months ago, and ” 

“Just this, Max Durr. The W9 bore 
a secret cargo of dextronite — a ten-liter 
cask which had been uncovered amid the 
debris of a Saturnian ray cannon. It 
was in the mysterious compound dextro- 
nite that the Saturnians found the power 
to fire their choking energy web around 
Earth. After the holocaust upon Saturn 
all their secrets as well as their unusual 
civilization was wiped out — except this 
single cask !” 

Max Durr tensed. There was a mag- 
netic timbre to the officer’s voice. 

“But understand this, Max Durr: 
The transports which blasted to the 
wrecked W9 found no trace of the dex- 
tronite. And of the five survivors, not 
a one knew a thing of its disappearance. 
Then, a scant Earth month after you 
and the other four were returned to 
Earth, both surviving officers, Engineer 
Goring and Captain Dane, were mur- 
dered.” 

Don Kelz forced his words sharply 
now : “The only thing which saved you, 
Nargate and Oskow was your fortunate 
choice in signing up so soon for inter- 
planetary service again. Nargate and 
Oskow were off on the X901 to Nep- 
tune — you had left twenty-four hours 
earlier upon a transport bound for the 
asteroids. 

“Do you follow me, Durr? The 
affair of the W9 and the missing dex- 
tronite has been in the hands of the 
secret police for these eighteen months. 
But until chance caused you three to 



92 



ASTOUNDING STORIES 



come together again here at Athalon, 
Mars, upon the return journeys of your 
contracts, there was little we could do. 

‘To-night I followed you three to the 
Cafe of the Purple Flack. I must 
choose but one of you for a very special 
mission. And I must contact that one 
secretly — for what we have since un- 
covered indicates that the ones who 
wrecked the W9 and stole the dextronite 
may have reason to dispose of you, 
particularly were they to suspect that an 
officer of the ISP had reached you.” 

Max Durr shook his head in bewilder- 
ment. Thickly, he mumbled: “Then 
they’ll be after me ! Could it have been 
that in the darkness — the killer missed 
me and burned down Gerdigan?” 

Don Kelz had turned away. From a 
nondescript compartment in the wall of 
the shack he pulled out a flame pistol, 
flare torch, and certain other tools which 
the wondering old spaceman could not 
identify. But he offered no protest 
when the officer tossed him the flame 
pistol. 

“We must hurry. It is likely that 
certain ones among those at the cafe 
to-night will construe our disappearance 
for what it is. At least two of the 
others in that crowd were not ordinary 
blasters. I know a spaceman’s waddle 
too well — and their eyes were suspici- 
ously sharp. But are you ready, Durr ?” 

“All set, sir.” Max Durr’s rasping 
voice came near breaking with an emo- 
tional fervor new to him. “We’ll rat 
them out. We’ll ” 

DON KELZ whirled sharply upon 
him. He placed both hands upon the 
old man’s broad shoulders. 

“Remember this. Max Durr. It is 
no ordinary criminal that we are after. 
Some powerful group is at work and 
they’ve got a ten-liter cask of dextronite. 
Remember that when the time comes 
they can use it — use it to blow Athalon 
— all of Mars if need he — into a mass of 
ruin. You are with the ISP now. Our 



mission is to serve. Duty comes first — 
and Max Durr — hear me — we may 
never again see the rays of the Sun.” 

Unflinchingly old Max returned the 
fierce gaze. 

“We’re — we’re on the job together. 
Don Kelz — the powers bless your name, 
sir — you made no mistake in picking out 
old Max Durr to help you.” 

Even as he spoke the old man sensed 
a subtle change in the officer before him. 
Don Kelz had hastened over to the tim- 
bered door, was leaning his ear against 
it, listening intently. Yet before old 
Max could shape his question into 
words, Don Kelz sprang to his side, 
grasped his arm in a viselike grip. 

“Max Durr,” his voice was low, yet 
charged with some strangely hypnotic 
power. “For the honor of the council — 
remember nothing of what has occurred 
this night — save that you fled alone — 
alone! Do you hear? And of Don 
Kelz of the ISP you know nothing! 
You must carry on. Trust me — and 
never lose heart.” 

Quickly Don Kelz gripped the old 
man’s hand. Old Max stammered in- 
coherently. 

“To the bitter end, sir, but I don’t 
quite ” 

Abruptly, he stopped. He was sud- 
denly conscious of being alone. The 
officer had vanished. In stupid amaze- 
ment the old spaceman stared about the 
dingy room. Of Don Kelz he neither 
saw nor heard the barest evidence. 

Scarcely had he assembled his con- 
fused thoughts than a thunderous bat- 
tering shook the door. The shock caused 
old Max to leap in wild fright. Now 
a voice barked sharply: “Open up! 
Open up, Blaster Durr, or we burn you 
out.” 

There was no other escape. Franti- 
cally, the old fellow clawed over the 
walls. There wasn’t a catch, a window. 
Planks shrieked a sibilant protest to the 
ramming without. Steadily, blow after 
blow bounded against the door. Shiver- 



DON KELZ OF THE I. S. P. 



93 



in g in paralyzing terror, old Max cow- 
ered against the far wall, his eyes 
protruding in sheer horror, his sagging 
mouth quivering as with severe cold. 

With a splintering crash, the door 
burst open. Straight across it dashed 
three masked men. One of them 
strained to hold back a drooling-mouthed 
brock, the slithering, reptilian blood- 
hound of Mars. The foremost of the 
group held his flame pistol upon the 
trembling old paunch. Now swiftly an- 
other grasped old Max’s waxlike arms, 
twisting them behind his back. 

“There’s just one here, Gotho,” the 
pistol bearer called over his shoulder to 
the man in the doorway with the leashed 
brock. “Dicus said there were two. 
Listen, Durr — you’re going to talk and 
it’ll be easier on you if you give us the 
right answers now. Who was that fel- 
low that came here with you? And 
where is he? Come on, talk! Talk! 
Why, you damned old ” 

Viciously, his blood pounding madly, 
old Max twisted so that the one who 
clung to his arms was hurled sharply 
against the wall. It was a crazy chance, 
but Max Durr was beyond reason. A 
moment before, his very soul had 
quavered, but now he was conscious of 
a strange, terrible power in his aged 
body. It was as if the mysterious secret- 
service officer were beside him, com- 
manding him. 

A lightning grasp clutched the arm 
which held the flame pistol. Startled, 
the fellow fell back, instinctively press- 
ing the stud of the gun. The blue-white 
flame seared a blinding arc, crackling 
the wall and ceiling of the room. Fran- 
tically he tore at the hand which held 
the pistol. The flame swerved across 
the room. 

A sickening cry cut through the place. 
The seared corpse of one of the in- 
truders slumped to the floor. But old 
Max was falling with the backward 
stumble of the one who still clutched 



the flame pistol. Bodies thwacked upon 
the planked flooring. 

Abruptly his ears roared with hideous 
thunder. Stupidly, old Max swayed and 
then slumped into an inert heap. 

SHARP EYES pierced the shadowy 
darkness. Dimly, there glowed from 
the cloudless sky the first flush of the 
lesser moon of Mars. Gliding noise- 
lessly from the niche in the wall, Don 
Kelz padded softly along the winding 
turns. Occasionally he could see the 
clear outlines of the two who hurried 
through the black alleys bearing an inert 
form. The two made speedily beyond 
the clatter of ramshackle buildings for a 
clearing to the north. Now they halted 
briefly. Then one of them bore the old 
spaceman’s body. The other went 
ahead in the darkness. 

Sensing their purpose, Don Kelz 
skirted the line of buildings. Yet he 
had gone a scant hundred yards before 
he heard the soft pur of an air cab. 
A voice called out, “ready.” The one 
who had waited stumbled forward, 
breathing heavily beneath his burden. 

A quick glance skyward revealed the 
rim of the lesser moon just above a dis- 
tant roof top. Had they been expecting 
such a maneuver, they might have ob- 
served the officer’s shadowy outline 
bounding across the clearing. The door 
of the air cab clicked shut. The pur 
became a loud hum. Don Kelz straight- 
ened up, ran swiftly, leaped. 

Strong fingers curled about the nar- 
row axle of the landing gear. Even as 
the air cab soared upward, Don Kelz 
hauled himself beneath the flooring, 
locking his legs around the landing gear 
and clutching a wheel firmly. Athalon 
dropped away with dizzying speed. Far 
below the vast outpost city — the greatest 
of all of Earth men’s interplanetary set- 
tlements — lay in slumbering darkness. 
Here and there, far below, tiny specks 
of light gleamed. To the northward the 



94 



ASTOUNDING STORIES 



magnificent space ship drome glowed in 
phosphorescent brilliance. 

The course of the speeding air cab 
swerved sharply westward. In the 
darkness below them now were the great 
pens for Earth cattle ; scaly beasts from 
Pluto; two, four and even ten-footed 
creatures shipped to and from all points 
in the solar system, beasts for food and 
beasts of labor. A sudden loss of alti- 
tude caused the air cab to skim the tops 
of the pens. Weird grunts, barks and 
cries ascended as the frightened things 
shied at the hurtling black cab above 
them. 

Yet, to the tense, straining officer, 
these commonplace sights and sounds 
had no significance other than that of 
location. They were well west of the 
Earth settlement proper. The slacken- 
ing speed indicated that the destination 
of the cab was at some point amid the 
crumpled stone ruins of an ancient 
civilization. 

A queer tingling coursed along his 
spine. Don Kelz’s mind throbbed with 
frantic thought. The tottering ruins of 
the old Athalon, of the true Martian 
civilization, were mysteries suitable for 
impractical professors. Could it be that 
those who held the precious dextronite 
had established a secret hide-out among 
these ancient ruins? 

In the midst of his perplexing 
thoughts cold realization awoke Don 
Kelz to desperate necessity. The air 
cab was settling groundward. Don Kelz 
poised himself, sucked in his breath, 
tensed. The air cab must drop slowly 
lest a jagged outcropping of crumbling 
stone wreck her. This factor gave him 
his chance. Twenty feet— fifteen — ten 
— Don Kelz dropped, rolled, lay still. 

The air cab grated upon the rough soil 
scarcely an arm’s length from his mo- 
tionless body. Every fiber of his body 
tingled with the glory of pursuit. His 
eyes gleamed ; his fingers twitched. To- 
night was the culmination of eighteen 
long Earth months of patient work. 



The figures emerged cautiously, 
quietly, from the dark blotch of the air 
cab. Don Kelz listened tensely, his 
hypersensitive ears attuned to the faint- 
est, sound. Though no word had been 
uttered, he knew that the old spaceman 
was alive. He could distinctly hear the 
wheezing gasp, slight though it was, of 
Max Durr’s labored breathing. 

One of the men had advanced to an 
ancient doorway. In a peculiar man- 
ner he rapped upon the stone, called a 
sharp, whispered code word. From 

somewhere within the mass of stone an 
answering voice responded. Now, 

swiftly, the two men gathered up the 
unconscious form of the old spaceman 
and disappeared within a black cleavage 
in the stone. 

KEEPING well to the black shadows 
of the walls, Don Kelz moved noiselessly 
toward that point where the two had 
seemingly blended into the irregular 
stone mass. With his right hand mov- 
ing before him along the wall as he 
crept forward, fie rounded the sharp 
turn. The long narrow cleft— remnant 
of an ancient doorway — was scarcely 
the width of a man’s body. Don Kelz 
stepped into the aperture, peered into 
thick darkness. 

This was a narrow hallway, pitch- 
black and with the smooth flooring in- 
clined slightly downward. Step by step, 
he stole forward, his right hand still 
feeling the way along the smooth, cool 
stones. Twenty paces and the hall 
opened into what was probably an an- 
cient room. Don Kelz was listening 
now, straining his ears to hear now in 
this direction, now in that. Silence, 
ominously heavy, mocked his anxiously 
beating heart. Feeling his way com- 
pletely around the room he determined 
the location of the three crevicelike exits 
other than the one through which he had 
entered. 

Stifling a fleeting tremor of panic, 
Don Kelz forced himself to enter each 



DON KELZ OF THE I. S. P. 



95 



of the three in turn. There was no 
slightest sound to guide him. Yet 
obviously those others had proceeded 
through one of these tunnellike hallways. 
Forcing himself to reason calmly, he 
chose the one to the right. The floor 
here dropped away at a sharp angle. It 
seemed logical that the criminals would 
have buried themselves as deeply as 
possible. 

Don Kelz pressed forward with less 
caution now. Cold fear struck at his 
nerve ends. His hand slid smoothly 
along the clammy wall, as the narrow 
way wound deeper and deeper into the 
unexplored regions below the ruins of 
the ancient Martian city. 

Twice again must he choose between 
the branching tunnelways, as the narrow, 
winding ramp burrowed farther and 
farther underground. Abruptly, he 
stopped. The walls of the ramp wid- 
ened sharply to yet another mysterious 
cavern. As he stepped into the place, 
a current of cold air chilled the officer’s 
sweating forehead. He sensed the un- 
usual vastness of a great hall. Doubtless, 
in ages long gone by, this had been a 
great assembly chamber. A soft tinkle 
caused him to halt. Again he heard it. 
It was the sound of the methodical drip, 
drip, drip of water falling from some 
high place to smooth, hard stone. 

Pausing only long enough to scratch 
a sharp guide mark upon the wall be- 
side the tunnel through which he had 
come, Don Kelz moved speedily across 
the cavern. Abruptly, his foot struck 
something. He pitched forward, the 
palms of his hands slapped the clammy 
stones as he broke his fall. Turning 
about in a hasty scramble Don Kelz 
felt over the stones. His hands struck 
a long metal pipe extending across the 
floor of the cavern. Clutching the pipe 
in rigid fingers the officer forcibly re- 
strained hysterical laughter. His nerves 
had been on edge. 

Tingling with excitement, Don Kelz 
followed the course of the pipe. To 



the far side of the cavern — a good forty 
paces — the pipe joined an upright ex- 
tension. Stout braces held the upright 
pipe firmly against the smooth walls. 

His body struck a metal object. He 
fell over it. Don Kelz was calm now. 
His eyes gleamed defiance at the thick 
darkness. Reaching up, his fingers 
curled about yet another metal brace. 
He had stumbled upon the metal rungs 
of a ladder which led upward along the 
course of the upright water pipe. He 
was no longer lost. 

This was indeed the secret hide-out 
of the mysterious marauders. Clearly, 
he had not followed the right path but 
even so he had gained in losing the trail. 
Luck was with Don Kelz. Obviously 
the hide-out was somewhere above him. 
The criminals had tapped an under- 
ground spring in this ancient hall in 
order to insure themselves of a safe 
and secret water supply. 

He had climbed fully a hundred feet 
above the floor of the cavern before 
reaching the curved ceiling. Neverthe- 
less, the pipe and metal ladder pro- 
ceeded on up through a narrow tube. 
Fiercely, he lashed aching muscles and 
sore fingers in the long, arduous climb. 

DON KELZ glided noiselessly into 
the dimly lighted room. For a moment 
the light stung his eyes. Then the mass 
of the machines assumed shape. Bend- 
ing over a desk, a scant ten paces before 
him, he saw a man busily engaged in 
repairing some small mechanism. The 
fellow had not heard the officer’s en- 
trance from the tunnel. Don Kelz 
stepped forward. The crunch of his 
boot upon the stone caused the man to 
jerk around quickly. With the same 
movement he had tugged at his flame 
pistol. 

The fellow’s eyes widened incredu- 
lously. His mouth opened to cry out a 
warning even as he jerked the flame 
pistol toward the intruder. But before 
a sound could be uttered Don Kelz 



96 



ASTOUNDING STORIES 



pressed the stud of his own gun, The 
man slumped forward. 

The doorway beyond opened to a 
short hallway. Speedily, Don Kelz 
crossed die room. A sudden exclama- 
tion halted him. Some one was calling 
out from the room beyond. Don Kelz 
pressed close to the wall, eyes alert, gun 
ready. 

“Something must be wrong! Alex 
didn’t ” 

Two men, coming hurriedly through 
the hall, stopped abruptly. Their eyes 
popped in terror. Before them stood 
the menacing figure of the agent of the 
ISP. 

“Keep your hands up,” Don Kelz 
barked the order sharply, keeping his 
Voice low. 

For a moment the two teetered there 
in the hall. Neither answered. Don 
Kelz had started toward them when, 
suddenly, the one farthest away lowered 
his arms. Giving his companion a quick 
shove, he ducked and ran back. 

Don Kelz jumped away to miss the 
stumbling body. Now, desperately, he 
fired the pistol — but too late. The sear- 
ing flame sprayed the heavy steel door 
to the room beyond. 

Twisting himself even as he fell into 
the room, the one who had deflected 
Don Kelz’s aim lurched in a low tackle. 
The sudden crash of the heavy body 
against his knees sent Don Kelz spin- 
ning backward. His head thwacked 
against the wall, the gun sailing from 
his hand across the room. Don Kelz 
came up fighting. The other man was 
clawing at him. Now in the full grip 
of animal ferocity the two wrestled in 
death clutches. The other was strong, 
his body massive. Nevertheless, the 
officer of the ISP was young. Blood 
throbbed heatedly in his veins. 

Summoning all his strength, Don Kelz 
shot his knees up sharply. The large 
man gasped. His clawing grip loosened. 
In that fraction of a second Don Kelz 
heaved up, hammered 'his fist viciously 



into his opponent. He beat mercilessly 
until the other sagged to the floor, his 
flabby mouth drooling in pain. 

Don Kelz staggered to his feet — yet 
his eyes held, in rigid disbelief, to the 
man on the floor. 

“Dar Warnack — you ” 

In brief seconds the shocking fact 
congealed in the officer’s swirling brain. 
Dar Warnack, commander of Earth’s 
outpost city of Athalon, Mars, was one 
of the mysterious conspirators against 
the council. But there was no time for 
wonderment. The traitorous commander 
lay in a moaning heap, and beyond that 
steel door 

Abruptly, the room trembled with a 
shrill whine. The fearful vibration 
ascended in deafening sibilation. The 
lights in the room dimmed to faint, yel- 
lowish glows. It was the dreaded howl 
of a powerful ray cannon. 

“Dar Warnack!” Don Kelz bent over 
the commander. Fiercely he clutched 
the body, shook the man. “Listen — in 
the name of humanity — if you have left 
in you any spark of manhood — order 
them to stop 1” 

Commander Warnack rolled his eyes, 
attempted to twist his head away from 
those steel-sharp fingers which were bit- 
ing into his throat. Impatiently, Don 
Kelz battered the man’s head against the 
stone. Dar Warnack cursed. Mad 
laughter gurgled insanely from thick, 
sagging lips. 

The shrill scream of the nefarious 
mechanism beyond the steel door burned 
into the impatient officer’s consciousness. 
Impulsively, he slammed Dar Warnack’s 
head down against the stone flooring 
with vindictive hate. 

Don Kelz swayed above the com- 
mander’s motionless body, glared about 
the room. His fists clenched in despera- 
tion. That door ! He had to get beyond 
it. He had to stop that infernal machine. 
With the supply of dextronite there was 
scant limit to the destruction a secret 
ray cannon might wreak. 



AST-6 



DON KELZ OF THE I. S. P. 



97 



They could conquer the Martian out- 
post, hold off whole fleets of the coun- 
cil’s transports. Obviously this had not 
been the first intention of Wamack and 
his conspirators, but with Wamack defi- 
nitely out of it and only death to be 
gained by surrender, the remainder of 
the gang would surely fight. 

THE WHINE began to waver in 
pitch. This could mean but one thing. 
Don Kelz knew enough of ray cannons 
to interpret the weird singsong. Al- 
ready, they were discharging the lethal 
waves which would soon build up suffi- 
ciently to destroy Athalon. 

Frantically, Don Kelz grasped a flame 
pistol from Warnack’s holster. He 
jumped over the body to the steel door. 
Securing his own flame torch he pressed 
both pistol and torch against the massive 
lock, pressed both studs. 

Crackling flame bit into the steel. 
Both torch and pistol quivered in the 
sturdy grip and Don Kelz poured hot, 
searing energy into the steel. Fumes 
stung his eyes, burned 'his nose and 
throat. Still the white-hot fury tore 
into the metal. His eyes were slits. He 
seemed' not to breathe. He poised him- 
self upon tiptoes. The metal door 
seemed to buckle away from the con- 
suming flares. 

Then, swiftly, his body a perfectly 
timed machine, Don Kelz dropped torch 
and pistol. Simultaneously, his shoulder 
crashed against the door. Metal rasped ! 
The door swung in sharply. Yet even 
as it burst open, the officer’s body drove 
fiercely into the brilliantly glowing room. 

The noise of the terrible machine mass 
which filled nearly all of the great hall 
screamed with horrible intensity. Be- 
fore the controls three men hunched 
in desperate activity. The slushing 
sound of Don Kelz’s body sliding across 
the smooth stone flooring aroused but 
one of them. The fellow whirled, 
reached for his flame pistol. 

The searing flame lashed out. Yet 

AST-7 



Don Kelz had rolled 1 , twisted, kicked. 
Catlike he was on his feet, crouching. 
The flame pistol swerved in a flashing 
arc just as the officer shot forward in a 
flying tackle. 

So fierce was the charge that his body 
drove all three operators back upon the 
controls. The machine howled to a 
maddening pitch. Lances of flame shot 
suddenly from point to point, crackling 
malevolently. Don Kelz was fighting 
crazily, blindly, pouring full strength 
and energy into straining muscles. 

Taken by surprise the three operators 
struggled in disorganized fright. The 
strange beastlike man seemed every- 
where at once. The four became a 
grunting, sweating, cursing entangle- 
ment of arms and legs. 

“Cut the power !” One of them yelled. 
“He forced in the full feed lever. He 
made ” 

A fist had crashed into the fellow’s 
mouth. Still the terrible machine roared 
in full blast. There was no time for 
direction or control. The thing was a 
seething, churning mass of deathly 
energy. But tthey were getting to him 
now. They were beating Don Kelz to 
the floor. He couldn’t last long. Fran- 
tically, he struggled, determined to fight 
so long as life would last. 

Then a blinding lance of fire cut into 
the milling group. An operator stag- 
gered back, fell lifeless to the floor. An- 
other stab of fire came and Don Kelz 
saw the face of another become chalk- 
white. His arms had been burned away. 
A fiery flame pistol had burned them 
to useless ash. 

Fierce, joyous energy surged through 
Don Kelz. Some one was helping him. 
Some one had fired that flame pistol and 
removed two of the operators. With the 
ruthless ferocity of a cornered beast Don 
Kelz tore into the remaining man. 
Swaying drunkenly to his feet, the body 
of his victim held above his head Don 
Kelz hurled the mass straight toward 
the fiery points of the ray cannon. 



98 



ASTOUNDING STORIES 



He had won ! For moments he stood 
there, swaying unsteadily and seeing 
only dead bodies. Then the straining 
pulsations of the machine drove him to 
full consciousness. He was at the con- 
trols, working swiftly, expertly. 

The whine of the monster ray cannon 
died down weirdly. For a moment the 
oppressive silence seemed more deafen- 
ing than the roar of tortured energy. A 
voice cut with shocking keenness into 
the trancelike stillness. 

“Don Kelz — I say, officer — 'how long 
must I ride here in this blessed har- 
ness?” 

Don Kelz jumped, stared open- 
mouthed. Then he laughed. In sheer 
nervous reaction he laughed until hot 
tears soothed his smarting eyes. 

There across the room, suspended well 
above the floor, old Max Durr hung in 
a sort of cage which had been cut from 
the leather of an old space suit. In one 
hand he waved a flame pistol. 

“Get me down, I say. Glory to the 
council, Don Kelz, but every bone of 
me throbs with a special pain of his 
own.” Old Max squirmed in the queer 
cage, his gray beard waving stiffly with 
the rapid working of his jaw as the 
words tumbled forth. 

“And did I pick them off! But say, 
Don Kelz, ’twas a crafty trick to hide 
this blessed gun close to my skin, heh? 
How do I rank as an ISP? But hurry 
I want to get down.” 



IT WAS DAYBREAK in Athalon 
when the two reached the headquarters 
building. Everywhere men stood' about 
in perplexed, questioning groups, talk- 
ing of the weird vibrations which had 
quavered throughout the city the night 
before. 

Captain Silbert, acting commander of 
Athalon, had completed the report. The 
crowded assembly hall was quiet. All 
eyes were fixed upon the two ragged 
spacemen who had brought them the 
incredible message. 

“Let us rejoice that this unbelievable 
horror is ended. Athalon has experi- 
enced her first traitor — and, by the 
courage and strength of the men of the 
ISP, escaped a fate worse than annihila- 
tion. As you have requested, a trans- 
port will carry you and your aid, Max 
Durr, Earthward at once.” 

Don Kelz saluted. His eyes were 
heavy with weariness, though his mouth 
was still firm and smiling. 

“Great Polaris! I just remembered 
it.” Max Durr seemed suddenly 
stricken. 

“What? What’s that?” 

Old Max looked up appealingly to 
Don Kelz. “My money. I just remem- 
bered. We left it at the Cafe of the 
Purple Flack — all of it — my wages — my 
winnings. Ah, woe is me — truly I must 
have come into my dotage — my winnings 
—all of it!” 





The 

Conclusion of: 



With Katharine in his 
arms, he leaped, slipped 
and half fell behind this ± 
second juggernaut which 
was plunging ■ 



Blue Magic 



by Charles Willard Diffin 



UP TO NOW: From Dra Tor’s re- 
search into electronic speed variations 
unthin the atom came much magic. 
Time itself was speeded up; all the per- 
ceptions, the functions of men and ani- 



mals and plants, took the new tempo. 
On Xandros, a tiny satellite of Jupiter 
which they know as Grokara, the cinema 
of time runs fast. All matter becomes 
invisible to one on slow time. 




100 



ASTOUNDING STORIES 



Then Dra Tor’s death was announced, 
and his daughter, Dra Vonga, using his 
magic, became ruler. She sent a space 
ship to Earth, and, in the high Sierra, 
Ranee Driggs, forestry man, finds a 
blue jewel. Looking into it, he sees Dra 
Vonga, a ravishing and exotic beauty. 
Here is more of Dra Tor’s magic — 
television through synchronous vibra- 
tions within the jewels, tuned vibrations 
almost as high pitched as thought, and 
a carrier for thought waves. 

With Katharine — “ Kitten ” — Putnam, 
Driggs is captured by grotesque, three- 
toed, green-fleshed men — Grokarian 
men, brought to Xandros by Dra Vonga. 
The two Earth folk are taken to Xan- 
dros. There Dra Vonga, infatuated 

with the Earth man, would blast Kath- 
arine in the 'magic of her withering blue 
flames, but sends her away instead. 

Driggs loves Katharine, yet against 
his own zvill he is tremendously drawn 
to Dra Vonga whose beauty is almost 
irresistible. 

On Xandros, Driggs finds Duvaurier, 
a Frenchman who has invented a space 
ship and whose secret trial flight from 
Earth has ended in captivity on Xan- 
dros. Duvaurier has been there a hun- 
dred Earth years of time, yet Driggs 
finds that he left the Earth only the 
year before. Duvaurier built the ship 
which brought Driggs and Katharine, 
and now five more are nearing comple- 
tion, for Dra Vonga plans further con- 
quest. 

The ship which took Katharine away 
returns bearing marks of the black chalk 
cliffs of Grokara, and Grokara is a fear- 
ful place. 

Duvaurier’ s little rusted ship in which 
he made his first flight is still able to 
drive along the lines of force which 
Duvaurier has found in static tension 
throughout all space, but the green 
guards prevent escape. Until Fozan, a 
Xandrian, turns loose the herd of 
shogas, and the great beasts, which are 



only cattle to Xandrians, charge in 
frenzy upon the green guards. 

If Driggs and Duvaurier can rescue 
Katharine, then drive out into space, 
they may escape. They run for the ship 
as the maddened shogas charge down. 

XVII. 

T HE THUNDER of the herd 
and the din of their snarling 
cries smothered all other sounds 
Driggs opened his mouth and shouted 
to Duvaurier and felt the words tear- 
ing at his throat. Still he heard no 
sound but only the pandemonium of 
the charging herd. He pitched Du- 
vaurier head first toward the little round 
port in the rusted side of the ship and 
flung himself on the red rock under the 
curve of the ship’s plates. 

The maddened shogas went by, and 
Driggs got to his feet, but he stood for 
a moment beside the open port and 
looked across the red field. 

Inside the ship, Duvaurier’s voice 
cried out: “Vite! Enter, m’sieu’! 

They have other weapons, the green 
ones !” 

From a low gray building near the 
first of the big ships a knot of green 
figures emerged. They were clustered 
together as they moved out. 

Two shogas bore down upon them 
The shogas’ necks were arched, their 
heads thrust forward, and they screamed 
as they ran. They were still fifty feet 
away when the knot of men opened out 
and something they had carried was 
left sparkling under the sun. 

For an instant it gleamed, then a 
single thin ray of pale violet flicked out, 
and the blinding brilliance of it blocked 
out the other gleaming and made sun- 
light pale. It was a knife, a rapier 
of light, that flicked once and touched 
the great beasts — and suddenly they 
were shogas no longer, but only two 
huge hulks that pitched limply forward 



BLUE MAGIC 



101 



and rolled and became at last inert 
mounds, shaggy and gray. 

Twice the green men of Grokara 
swung the stabbing ray before Driggs 
moved. And even then it was the quiver 
of the rusted steel beneath his hand 
that brought him to his senses. 

“Vite, m’sieu’l” Duvaurier’s voice 
was imploring. Driggs turned and 
threw himself in a headlong dive 
through the open port. And, with the 
doorway still open, the little craft that 
had brought Duvaurier through space 
surged up in a straight, vertical lift. 

Duvaurier closed the port. He moved 
a switch for a moment, and lead around 
the rim of the port became soft, then 
hardened instantly and sealed the rim. 
He looked at gauges and tried gas 
cocks which hissed loudly in the closed 
cabin of the ship. He said at last: 

“That violet ray, my friend, is not 
good. The ray which you saw was 
harmless, but what you did not see was 
ultra-violet of very short wave lengths. 
It is more of Dra Tor’s magic. What 
a pity that Dra Tor died ! This ray is 
the death ray that comes from blue 
stars. Our Earth astronomers know 
of it. It fills all space, but in the walls 
of my little ship is lead which screens 
it out.” 

Driggs said tonelessly : “That’s 

good.” The wonder of this surging lift 
was stunning him. The whistle of air 
outside the walls was growing more 
faint. He said : “Now if we can find 
Grokara — damn the word ! — I mean 
Jupiter — then find Kitten ” 

He did not finish. Up ahead Du- 
vaurier was closing a switch which 
made Driggs heavy with some new 
gravitation beneath his feet. Then, in 
the central framework of the ship, three 
little radial cylinders moved and swung 
toward the bow, and with that the surge 
of the ship forward was almost unbear- 
able. 

From up forward Duvaurier said 
calmly: “As to mademoiselle, we will 



see. But for Grokara — behold, my 
friend; Grokara is not hard to find.” 

He was pointing through a forward 
port where, in a darkening sky, a moon, 
incredibly huge, shone with green, lus- 
trous light. 

IT WAS still green when it had 
changed from a moon to a great moun- 
tain-roughened globe, and from that to 
merely an expanse of barren, gray- 
green rock a few thousand feet below. 
The rock was the color of mildew and 
reached out endlessly toward an indefi- 
nite horizon. The ship was flying be- 
neath a blanket of cloud that made the 
land below unchangingly dreary. 

"Grokara,” Duvaurier said, “is of an 
enormous size, but it is in no way good. 
The green color is of copper carbonate, 
for the rock is filled with the metal. 
Now comes a gray ocean and beyond 
that the land of the green-fleshed men.” 

The gray ocean under a cloud-filled 
sky passed swiftly; then came land and 
evidences of plowed fields. But the 
cities were merely clusters of rounded 
earth mounds. Among them groups of 
dark figures seemed as unmoving as 
the mounds. 

Duvaurier said, “They are on slow 
time,” and added: “I came here with 

her. How incredible seemed the green 
ones then ! 

“But I remembered the research of 
a professor at the University of Ala- 
bama in your own country. This pro- 
fessor said that only by accident load 
man’s blood been red, for the green 
chlorocruorin which he discovered in 
certain sea worms was equally a car- 
rier of oxygen. And here on Grokara 
both green and red-blooded animals 
have evolved! One gets used to them 
in time.” 

Duvaurier had cut down the ship’s 
speed to pass through air without un- 
due heating, but still the rectangles of 
tilled ground and the clusters of mounds 
poured swiftly beneath. After that 



102 



ASTOUNDING STORIES 



came mountains, with the ship sweep- 
ing up in a great burst of speed to 
clear them. Then Duvaurier pointed 
ahead. 

“The black chalk cliffs,” he said, “and 
— which is not well for mademoiselle 
— the land of the karanas.” 

Driggs snapped out : “You didn’t tell 
me that. What are the karanas?” 

“Man-beasts, yet, I think, neither 
quite beasts nor men. But they are 
horrible, m’sieu’. And I did not tell 
you because what could you do? 

“But there is one hope, my friend 
Driggs. There on Grokara is a plateau 
which in some odd way is insulated 
from the rest. To permit the work- 
ing of mines on that plateau, Dra 
Vonga, by means of the tuning mecha- 
nism in the gray ship, was able to com- 
municate this fast vibration to the 
plateau. 

“The time zone surrounding the ship 
was enlarged, and included the plateau ; 
and the plateau itself became on fast 
time. But the karanas, having first been 
driven away, have remained on slow 
time. Now the plateau is invisible to 
them, and they avoid it unless ” 

Duvaurier paused and bit nervously 
at his lip. 

“Go on,” Driggs said harshly. 

“Unless there is food that attracts 
them,” Duvaurier said. “They see 
nothing, but their sense of scent is 
keen.” 

Driggs answered : “Yeah, sure ” 

and did not know what he said. He 
stared blindly ahead toward dull black 
cliffs — the black chalk cliffs of Grokara. 

HORIZONTALLY across their face 
was a broad band of white that Du- 
vaurier said might be the insulating 
stratum. He moved small levers, and 
the ship lifted easily. Atop the cliffs 
was a plateau that seemed carpeted with 
green mould. It slipped smoothly be- 
neath the speeding ship and became less 



level, and the green was broken by deep 
canyons and small, steep-sided hills. 

On one hill was a fleck of red. Du- 
vaurier set the ship down gently on the 
level plain near by, and Driggs stood 
silent, but with his hands making lit- 
tle moves that were like echoes of each 
motion Duvaurier made in unscrewing 
the port. For the bit of red on the 
little hill was very quiet. 

Then he sprang outside the ship, but 
stood on the green rock, crouching, 
tensed and ready to spring aside. He 
did not move, for he was facing as fear- 
some a beast as he had ever seen. 

The ship had landed beside it. It was 
on all fours, facing lengthwise of the 
ship and so looking directly toward 
Driggs only ten feet away. It was a 
shaggy beast, its hair matted with filth ; 
yet even down on all four feet its back 
was higher than Driggs’ waist. Its head 
was thrust forward and tipped up as a 
man’s head would be if he walked in 
such a way. And the face was gro- 
tesquely, yet horribly, that of a man. 

It wasn’t an ape face, nor gorilla, for 
the cunning in the eyes was human cun- 
ning, though the ferocity was that of a 
beast. 

Driggs stood rigid for a single in- 
stant, his tensed muscles ready to throw 
him to either side ; then he knew that 
the thing before him was almost as still. 
It was moving, but the motion was slow. 

It came upright with dreadful delib- 
eration and stood on its hind feet, and 
the forepaws that it reached out were 
not paws but hands. The front of the 
thing as it stood erect was almost hair- 
less. It was the torso of a man, Driggs 
saw, and above it that dreadful face 
and the head of a man. He saw the 
nostril holes in its flattened nose dis- 
tend as the beast got his scent. Its 
mouth opened wide and Driggs knew 
it was uttering some hideous cry, yet 
no sound came. 

Beyond this one were others that also 
stood erect and opened their nostrils 



BLUE MAGIC 



103 



and rolled their lips back from yellowed 
fangs. 

Back of Driggs, Duvaurier spoke : 
“It is like the slow cinema picture, 
n’est-ce pas? This, m’sieu’, is how you 
appeared slow to her when she retarded 
your tempo. But behold the karanas 
— the man-beasts of Grokara.” 

The beasts were all headed one way. 
Two, at one side, turned as they got 
the man scent and drew in toward 
Driggs ; and the one he had first seen 
took one slow step toward him and then 
another. It was looking directly at 
Driggs, yet there was no sharp focus 
in the gaze but rather a blind staring. 

Suddenly Driggs whirled about as the 
steady forward drift of the beasts took 
on meaning. Directly ahead of the ship 
was the , red of Katharine Putnam’s 
dress, on the very top of a small, 
pointed hill. The beasts were headed 
that way; scores of them were drawing 
in and converging at that point. At the 
base of the hill they jammed solidly to- 
gether and some were halfway up. 
They, moved with the slow, deadly cer- 
tainty of engulfing water. 

Driggs took one step, then Du- 
vaurier’s arm was about him, and Du- 
vaurier’s voice was shouting: 

“No, m’sieu’ — they are slow, but once 

their hands close on you We will 

take the ship there, and I, perhaps, can 
hold it steady in the air while you get 
out.” 

Against the side of Driggs’ face was 
sudden pressure. Sharp points touched 
and pressed in, and another point caught 
beneath his jaw, then all the points be- 
gan to close. Duvaurier screamed : 
“Karana!” then Driggs jerked his head 
free. Close beside him the big hand of 
the karana closed. Its nails were thick 
and black and hooked like great claws. 

He had plenty of time to move away 
before the hand came forward again. 
And once more Duvaurier tugged at 
him with his one good arm and hand. 
“Come 1” he entreated. 



But Driggs tore free. Ahead of the 
ship the wave of beastly things was 
nearing the top. The side of the lit- 
tle hill was a slowly undulating mass 
of bodies, writhing beneath a blanket 
of dark fur. On the hill a bit of red 
lifted and fluttered in the wind. 

XVIII. 

KATHARINE PUTNAM had not 
moved. Driggs had only an irregular 
mound of red to show that she was 
there— that and the horde of beasts with 
infallible scent. And still she did not 
move while he ran toward her, shift- 
ing and dodging among the huge slow- 
moving things — until one in the very 
front of those climbing toward her dis- 
turbed a great rock. 

It rolled and leaped with sudden mo- 
tion as if it had come to life. It was 
four or five feet in diameter, gray at 
first, then wet and shining and red with 
the ruby redness of fresh blood, for it 
plowed a furrow as it came through 
the mass of slow-moving flesh. 

And Katharine Putnam stirred at 
that. She flung up one bare arm and 
raised her head. She rubbed her eyes 
like one awakening, then sprang to her 
feet. Her red frock hung in rags about 
her. Her face above was ghastly pale. 
She cried out: “Ranee, I didn’t mean 
to sleep — and now they’ve got me ! 
Don’t come! Don’t!” 

Then Driggs pushed a clawing hand 
aside, moved swiftly between two huge 
beasts that turned their heads as they 
scented him, and vaulted to the top of 
the rock that had wedged against a 
blocking mass of horrible flesh. 

Ahead of the rock, up the slope of 
the little hill, an avenue was cleared. 
It was paved with an oozing red mass 
no longer distinguishable as separate 
bodies, and the beasts at each side of 
it were closing in. They moved less 
slowly now, for the scent of blood had 



104 



ASTOUNDING STORIES 



reached them. Driggs leaped from the 
top of the rock and fought for footing 
on the slippery paving of that horrible 
way, and climbed. At last he stood be- 
side the girl. 

He did not touch her or speak to her. 
He looked quickly about and saw the 
same rising horror on all sides. But he 
was looking for a weapon. He sprang, 
suddenly, almost down to the nearest 
karam, and bent and heaved on a stone 
that was beneath another huge block. 

Debris from the mine Duvaurier had 
spoken of, a heap of great blasted rocks 
— this was the hill on which Katharine 
had taken refuge. And the rock frag- 
ments were huge. Driggs was clearing 
smaller pieces from beneath the outer 
edge of a great greenish-black mass. 
And at last it moved. 

A karana had dislodged the first one, 
and Driggs had seen his chance there. 
Now he swept Katharine Putnam into 
his arms and leaped and slipped and half 
fell and went on again in the wake of 
this second juggernaut that was plung- 
ing on ahead. He was splashed with 
blood to his knees when he reached 
level ground, and stood Katharine on 
her feet. 

She said, “That wasn’t very nice, 

Ranee, but — but ” Suddenly, her 

attempt at brave indifference vanished. 
“Ranee,” she gasped, “are we getting 
away, Ranee?” 

Not fifty feet away was the ship. 
Duvaurier had lifted it off the surface 
of gray-green rock; now he was drop- 
ping it back. The ship jarred heavily 
as it touched, and Duvaurier jumped 
out. 

But he did not look toward the two 
nor at the slow karanas swinging in to- 
ward these new scents. He looked back 
into the leaden gray sky where a 
rounded darker blot was swelling like 
a bubble that is being blown. 

Duvaurier said, “She comes. And we 
cannot escape. My little ship ” then 



the big gray craft swooped in, and a 
tube projecting from the bow swung 
its muzzle upon them. 

DRA VONGA walked down from 
the opened port. The gold of her hair 
was matched perfectly by the heavy 
golden folds of her robe, draped from 
her shoulders and gathered in at her 
waist. She glowed as if a single ray 
of sunshine had broken through the 
heavy clouds and touched her. 

But Duvaurier made little groaning 
sounds as Driggs and Katharine came 
near. 

“I think,” Duvaurier said, “that the 
karanas would have been kinder.” 

The man-beasts were turning toward 
them from all sides, always moving, 
converging toward this new prey. One 
of them was near Dra Vonga, and Dra 
Vonga’s face told of her disgust. She 
wrapped her robe more closely about 
her and moved far to one side to avoid 
any contaminating touch. And, for a 
single moment, she was between her 
captives and the ship. 

Duvaurier moved as if galvanized 
into life. He flung himself forward 
and dived head first through the open 
port of his little ship. Sounds came 
from within. Other barking shouts 
echoed from the larger ship. 

Dra Vonga turned and moved quickly 
aside. A blue ray like those they had 
seen in the temple shot from the muzzle 
of the projector on the big ship. 

But Duvaurier had lifted the smaller 
craft. It leaped upward in the instant 
that the blue ray slashed in below. To 
Driggs’ eyes it was gone instantly- 
gone with the speed of light. And in 
the same moment he knew that the blue 
ray had touched them. Then, the ship 
and Dra Vonga and all the green fig- 
ures swarming from the port were gone 
in that impenetrable haze that meant a 
change of time sense. 

A quivering — and the karanas in that 
same instant came to life. 



BLUE MAGIC 



105 



They had been moving forward with 
deadly certainty, in that slow motion 
which was horrible, yet which meant 
safety. Now, instantly, they were mov- 
ing at terrific speed, rushing in from 
all sides. And the air was a pande- 
monium of cries that came from their 
opened jaws. 

Driggs gasped out : “The ray — it has 
slowed us down !” Then he took the 
girl in his arms. 

He would have thrown her to a place 
of safety, but one quick glance showed 
there was none. The nearest karana 
was beside them in one last rush; it 
stood upright ; its hands, with every fin- 
ger tipped with a black, hooked claw, 
closed in — then Dra Vonga. laughed. 

In a single flash of time the fearful 
din of animal sound was gone. There 
was only Dra Vonga’s soft laughter, 
and her voice. 

“You were so fun-nee!” she said. 
“So slow, like the karanas.” 

Close before Driggs’ staring eyes a 
great hand with black, hooked claws was 
closing — slowly. An ugly half-human 
body back of the claws was leaning for- 
ward — slowly. Others of the karanas 
that had been rushing with horrible 
clamor upon them were again caught in 
that slow deliberateness of motion. 

The claws touched Driggs’ face be- 
fore he jerked away. Then again he 
picked Katharine up in his arms and 
dodged and circled and ran until he was 
free of the crowding beasts that had 
been almost upon them. 

Fifty feet away Dra Vonga. was 
standing beside the big ship. Duvaurier 
and his little rusted craft were gone, 
swallowed up in the depths of space 
beyond the clouds. Dra Vonga said 
with childish candor: “I promised not 
to harm Kit-ten and I did not, but I 
made no promise for. the karanas. 

“Now, I think I would leave you both 
here except that Du-vor might return. 
Besides, Dra Vonga must, study this 
Kit-ten, and see by what magic she 



holds you. You could have escaped, 
Ranee Driggs, but you came here in- 
stead because she was here. I must 
know why.” 

Green men, four or five of them, came 
forward with drawn weapons, then 
Driggs and the girl followed Dra Vonga 
toward the ship, , 

But once Dra Vonga turned and 
looked past them across the dreary 
waste of the gray-green plateau on Gro- 
kara where the' man-beasts of Grokara 
circled and drew in again in converg- 
ing lines toward the human prey. And 
Dra Vonga smiled sweetly. 

“You were fun-nee, but you have 
shown me how to reward Fozan and 
the others. They shall have the karanas 
for companions.” 

Suddenly, her eyes blazed with hate, 
and she spat out words: “I. will bring 
the karanas to Xandros. They will 
touch their clawed feet to Xandros, and 
instantly they will be no longer, slow. 
They shall haye Xandros for their own ; 
they shall have the men: — and the 
women !” 

Dra. Vonga turned away then and 
went inside the ship. 

XIX. 

DRIGGS' and Katharine Putnam 
were in still another room in Dra Von- 
ga’s temple. Arkos, the Grokarian, had 
brought them there when the gray ship 
had returned. Now they stood silent, 
for the room was in darkness except for 
a single ray of light that came through 
an aperture above and shone on a pair 
of black curtains. 

The light was blue. The curtains ab- 
sorbed it and left the rest of the room in 
darkness. Yet one thing caught the 
light and reflected it. 

At one side of the curtain, on a 
pedestal, was a blue crystal ball a foot 
in diameter. A hard, indefinable blue 
— electric, clear as crystal. It caught 
the blue light, and wherever one stood 



106 



ASTOUNDING STORIES 



the reflection followed like a never-clos- 
ing eye. 

Driggs, looking at it, had to fight to 
turn away, for the light was hypnotic — 
the blue of it or its steady intensity ; he 
could not tell which. 

He touched Katharine’s hand and 
found it cold. Under his breath he said, 
“More voodoo stuff. Don’t let it get 
you.” 

“I don’t like the crystal,” she whis- 
pered. “I’ve seen it and looked into it. 
I saw some rather dreadful things, 
Ranee, but I think she made me see 
them.” 

“Hypnotism ?” 

“Yes, but there was more to it than 
that.” 

Driggs broke in with thoughts that 
he could not drive from his mind for 
long. “It’s been plenty tough for you, 
but you and I are about washed up now. 
Duvaurier has gone, and that just fixed 
up any chance we ever had for a get- 
away. And it’s these poor devils here 
I’m thinking of. She’s going to bring 
in those karanas, and what can I do ?” 

He rammed his hand into a coat 
pocket and brought out all that the 
pocket held — some flakes of tobacco and 
two discolored matches with blue heads. 
“They cleaned me,” he said ; “this is all 
I’ve got left.” 

He had been whispering. Now 
Katharine pressed his hand and he was 
still. The heavy black curtains were 
moving, swinging smoothly apart. And, 
abruptly, Dra Vonga was before them. 

She wore a robe of dead black with 
a single great sapphire holding it at her 
waist. It draped loosely over her shoul- 
ders, and the creamy richness of her 
skin on arms and face and throat was 
changed to the white of alabaster, under 
that light. Even her hair was like white 
gold. 

But her lips flamed, and her eyes 
were deep and dark. And the beauty 
of her, as she stood unmoving for that 
interminable moment, seemed to reach 



out and take Driggs by the throat. He 
could not breathe for the hurt in his 
chest. Little tremblings ran through 
him. His pulse, pounding in his ears, 
was like the exhaust of an engine far 
away. 

She stood three steps above the level 
of the room and looked down at them; 
at the man in his stained clothes where 
the marks of Grokara had been wiped 
off, and the girl in her red frock that 
horrible, black-clawed hands had torn 
to rags. 

And after a time, she spoke: “Once, 
Ranee Driggs, you asked why I had 
brought you from your Earth. I will 
tell you now. The blue crystal told me 
that you would come to show me the 
lost magic of Dra Tor.” 

Driggs’ laughter was harshly con- 
temptuous, but the sound was largely 
a reaction against the spell of her beauty 
that had gripped him a moment before. 
He was still struggling against it. 

“Listen,” he said; “I don’t fall for 
that crystal-gazing bunk. Dra Tor 
taught you plenty of — well, call it magic 
if you like. He was about a million 
years ahead of us in science, I guess. 
But this other stuff, that’s something 
else again.” 

He stopped, expecting her to flame 
out at him in anger. He felt that here 
was the end of their wild adventure, 
and he was beyond hope and so beyond 
caring. 

But Dra Vonga’s eyes did not change. 
Instead she said patiently: “I will tell 
it to you as Dra Tor told it to me. 

“The little blue jewel which you 
found when Arkos lost it was tuned to 
the one I held. You looked into it, and 
we were joined in thought. But this” 
— she pointed to the big crystal globe — 
“is tuned to the great all-thought. For 
Dra Tor said that we are in an ocean of 
thought and of truth. We are sur- 
rounded by it, and all knowledge is 
there, but we must learn how to reach 
out and take it.” 



BLUE MAGIC 



107 



Driggs’ lips twisted to a cynical smile, 
but before he could speak Dra Vonga 
said sharply: “Do -not laugh, Ranee 

Driggs. Dra Tor was wise with great 
wisdom. Look now — and learn !” 

SHE came quickly down the three 
steps, the gold of her sandals twinkling 
whitely beneath the lower edge of her 
robe. She crossed to the crystal and 
stood with one hand above it, but she 
did not touch it. Then she stepped 
back. 

“Look, Ranee Driggs,” she said. 

Driggs shrugged imperceptibly. He 
moved over to her side and leaned above 
the blue ball. But again his thoughts 
had gone back to Duvaurier and the 
swiftness with which the little ship had 
escaped. If they had been five minutes 

sooner in finding Kitten But he 

couldn’t blame Duvaurier 

All this had been thought over many 
times since the gray ship had returned 
them to Xandros. He was thinking of 
it all now as he leaned above the blue 
crystal— and suddenly he found himself 
face to face with Duvaurier. 

The Frenchman was standing in the 
cabin of his ship. Back of him was the 
little three-cylindered device he had 
called his impeller. One cylinder was 
vertical and slightly forward ; the other 
two pointed straight ahead and were as 
close as they could be brought together. 
Duvaurier’s body was leaning forward 
as if resisting terrific acceleration. 

And then, for one brief instant, there 
came to Driggs an unique experience: 
he heard Duvaurier’s thoughts. 

It was as if he thought them him- 
self. They were words — pictures — and 
still they were Duvaurier’s thoughts. 

Thoughts of the mountain above the 
red field — of the gash across the moun- 
tain that made a transverse scar. They 
both had stood there when the ship bear- 
ing Kitten had passed above their heads. 
He saw the stratum of blue clay and 
shale. The limestone above it was 



black, and the shelf below was black; 
there were caves back there in the blue 
shale, and water trickled from the caves 
and ran across the black rock. 

Thoughts — then, abruptly, Duvaurier 
was gone, and Dra Vonga was speak- 
ing. She asked eagerly : “Did you see 
the magic ? The clouds, and the flames 
like the blue flames in the temple, yet 
not the same?” 

“I saw Duvaurier.” Driggs spoke 
shortly, for the experience had shaken 
him. 

“Du-vor !” There was only contempt 
in Dra Vonga’s tone. 

Abruptly, she bent her own head 
above the blue crystal. Her lips moved 
soundlessly and her two hands came up 
and clasped and opened again with the 
tensity of some emotion. Then she 
drew back cautiously as if almost afraid 
to move. 

“Look,” she whispered, “the lost 
magic of Dra Tor!” 

And Driggs, looking into the crystal, 
found it filled with terrible flames. 

Real flames, these. Whatever was 
burning was hidden under rolling clouds 
of smoke, and he could not see below; 
but the smoke was such as burning oil 
or resins might make, and the black bil- 
lowing smoke masses were shot through 
with red tongues that painted them to 
sultry glowing. 

Driggs could almost feel the heat on 
his face. He drew back. “That’s plenty 
hot, that fire,” he said. 

Dra Vonga looked at him from wide 
eyes, and she breathed through parted 
lips. Off at one side Katharine Put- 
nam stood and watched and said noth- 
ing at all. 

“Fire!” Dra Vonga said. “It is a 
new word. But It is the lost magic. 
And it is known to you !” 

Driggs looked across at Katharine and 
spoke to her. “It’s fire,” he said. “All 
the time I’ve been here I’ve never seen 
any fire, but I never thought of it be- 
fore.” 



108 



ASTOUNDING STORIES 



“Listen, Ranee Driggs,” Dra Vonga 
interrupted. 

“Dra Tor did not tell me this magic, 
for he said it was not meant for Xan- 
dros. But, after much trying, I saw 
it in the crystal. And I saw that a man 
from a far star would come with knowl- 
edge of the magic, and by the magic he 
would save me from great harm. After 
that he and I would be like one person ; 
together we would have all magic. We 
would rule here and on his world, too, 
and ’’ 

Driggs asked dryly: “Did you see 

all that — all of it?” 

The words which had been pouring 
from Dra Vonga’s lips came more hesi- 
tantly now. “No,” she admitted, “the 
last was always hidden under the black 
clouds. But it is so because Dra Vonga 
says it will be. Will you bring this 
magic to Xandros, Ranee Driggs?” 

Driggs slid one hand into the pocket 
of his coat, and his fingers closed on 
two bits of wood ; two matches, com- 
monplace things of his own world. But 
he was thinking of the resinous forests 
of Xandros and of what flame would 
mean. 

“Dra Tor” — he was echoing Dra 
Vonga’s words — “was wise with great 
wisdom. This magic is not for Xan- 
dros. But I will bring it for you — 
once.” 

XX. 

THEY passed out through the great 
room of the temple, but they stopped, 
first, a single step inside the arched en- 
trance. For the temple, at the end 
where Dra Vonga’s throne stood on a 
raised platform, was ablaze with color. 

Across the whole end of the room, 
and clear to the beginning of the high 
dome, flames filled the air. Blue flames 
and yellow that came and went and 
whirled into intricate patterns or 
blended to countless shades of green and 
were never still. 

Sound came from them as if every 



shade had its own note. The sound was 
music. And it was pleasing, yet dis- 
turbing, for it held new chords and new 
harmonies built up from queer frac- 
tional tones. The sound came down out 
of the flames. 

Dra Vonga spoke and broke the spell 
of them. “The singing flames of Dra 
Tor,” she said reverently. “And now 
you will go, for Dra Vonga would be 
alone while the flames talk to her. Kit- 
ten will be in no way harmed. And 
you, Ranee Driggs, are free to work 
the new magic. But let it be soon, for 
the karanas come.” 

Then, in a room in the outermost cir- 
cular building, but at the rear, Driggs 
had a chance for a few words with 
Katharine before he left. 

Kitten was troubled — he could see 
that — and he wanted to take her in his 
arms but found it impossible even to 
touch her hand. A wall had come up 
between them ; something intangible, 
something he couldn’t see clearly but 
knew it was there. 

He walked to an outer door of the 
room and looked out and found that 
it faced on more of the wide pavement. 
Out there the sun was shining as it had 
shone since first he came. Four ugly, 
glassy-skinned green men of Grokara 
sat in the sunshine and looked at Driggs 
from slitted eyes. They were Kitten’s 
jailers. 

Across the pavement, from among 
distant trees, a plant such as Driggs had 
seen came rolling. It was drawn into a 
tight ball, but hands came out from the 
ball and pushed it across the smooth 
stone. 

Where the breeze blew down from 
Driggs and carried the human scent the 
plant stopped abruptly, reversed its mo- 
tion and rolled swiftly away, until one 
of the green guards leaped upon it and 
tore off leafy, cup-shaped hands and 
ate the red center out of each. The ball 
was a whirl of struggling stems and 
leaves that tore free at last and again 



BLUE MAGIC 



109 



formed themselves to a ball that rolled 
erratically, but swiftly, out of sight. 

Driggs hardly saw it. This was Xan- 
dros. Things like that happened on 
Xandros. 

Back inside the room Katharine 
walked across to a chair of ornately 
carved wood and stood beside it, finger- 
ing the carving of am arm rest. She 
did not look up, but said, “So you’re 
going in for magic in a big way — you 
and Dra Vonga.” 

Driggs’ answer was a growl. “Magic 
— hell ! But she’s a devil ; I’ll go that 
far with you.” 

He did not turn, nor see the girl as 
she raised her eyes and looked stead- 
ily at his lean figure making a black 
silhouette in the doorway. “Dra 
Vonga,” she said slowly, “is — believe it 
or not — a lovable child.” 

Then she added: “She is also the 

crudest, most heartless creature I have 
ever seen. And she is a woman, who, 
in her way, is desperately in love with 
you. You knew that, of course, 
Ranee ?” 

Driggs did not turn. “Yes,” he said, 
“I knew that.” 

He looked out again at the green 
guards. “I’d better not talk too much 
now,” he said, “but I’ve got an idea or 
two to work out. You’ll be all right 
here, Kitten. Dra Vonga has prom- 
ised, and I guess there are no mental 
reservations this time.” 

“That’s nice,” Katharine said, and 
did not look up until after he had gone. 

DRIGGS left the temple and went to 
the red field. Down at the far end five 
ships gleamed coppery-bright. Four of 
them were finished, lacking only the in- 
stallation of those strange generators 
that Dra Tor had conceived. One in 
each ship would maintain a vibration 
zone about it — a magnetic field, perhaps 
— Driggs could not tell. But inside that 
zone would be fast time wherever that 



ship was. And the fifth ship was 
nearly done. 

He looked then at the mountain close 
to the ships, and he thought of Du- 
vaurier as he had seen him in the blue 
sphere. 

That had been a damned funny ex- 
perience. Had he really read Du- 
vaurier’s thoughts — and, if he had, 
what did it mean ? Why was Duvaurier 
thinking of the mountain? 

And the blue stratum, too — he could 
see it like a flat-shadowed gash cut into 
the mountain and dividing it into an 
upper and a lower part. Seen from this 
side, the stratum was not horizontal but 
was sloped, with a pitch toward the red 
field. 

Driggs shook his head — perhaps those 
hadn’t been Duvaurier’s thoughts at all. 
He went then in search of Fozan, 

And, standing on the mountain a lit- 
tle later with Fozan, he looked down on 
the red field and the solid expanse of 
forest surrounding it. He said : “Those 
trees are rotten with pitch and resin. 
No wonder Dra Tor didn’t want them 
to have fire. Duvaurier kept his mouth 
shut, too. But we’re going to have fire 
here now.” 

Fozan said, “Fire? I do not under- 
stand. All I know is that the karanas 
will come.” 

“I’m figuring to give the karanas 
something to think about,” Driggs said. 
“I’ll cramp their lovely style quite a bit. 
After it’s all over I want you and your 
men and the shogas to go in there and 
clean up the karanas and green men . 
both. They won’t have much fight in 
them. But first I want a firebreak two 
hundred feet wide all around this field.” 

Driggs stopped then and drew a long 
breath. And, at sight of the bewilder- 
ment on Fozan’s face, he began again 
and put everything into simple words. 
But he cautioned Fozan to say nothing 
of what it all meant but to drive his 
men like hell — which last also needed 
explaining to the bronze-faced man. 



110 



ASTOUNDING STORIES 



Then, through time which would have 
been many days had there been nights 
to mark them, Driggs watched the fire- 
break grow and become a broad avenue 
circling the field. It was set back from 
the field by a quarter mile, and Dra 
Vonga’s temple and the lustrous, opal- 
escent homes of the Xandrians were all 
outside. 

Men of Fozan’s race worked to make 
it, and the shogas, with rope harnesses 
on them, hauled on cables and brought 
the black trees crashing down. 

Once Arkos and other Grokarians 
came in the gray ship, but Dra Vonga 
was with them, too. The shogas were 
kept at a safe distance. 

“Is it part of the magic?’’ Dra Vonga 
asked. 

And, at Driggs’ reply, she silenced 
the shouting green men and left with 
them in the ship. 

But still the new ships left the red 
field before the firebreak was done. 

RANCE drove the men then, and the 
crash of falling timber was an endless 
sound. Other crews followed and 
dragged logs and branches to the in- 
side toward the field and piled other 
branches and brittle, resinous brush on 
top until the inner edge of the broad 
avenue was like a great fuse waiting 
only for a spark to change it to a line 
of fire. 

Back of this the firebreak was 
cleared, but between this line of brush 
and the red field was a quarter mile of 
dense forest. The trees with shiny 
black trunks would each be a blazing 
torch ; together they would make a 
holocaust of flame. 

But the five ships were gone. Driggs 
and Fozan and the crews with their 
great shaggy work animals were tearing 
out the last section of forest in back of 
the mountain when the ships came back. 

Driggs saw them when they were far 
off and snapped out orders which Fozan 
translated for the men. Then, with 



Fozan and ten others, he ran up the 
winding trail which would take him to 
the ledge. This was the blow-off now. 
If they could wipe out the karanas and 
the green soldiers of Dra Vonga at one 
blow, then make a surprise attack on 
the temple 

He came out upon the ledge of black 
limestone and ran, following the black 
rock, . around the circle of the hill, 
while Fozan and the ten came after, 
their bare feet making slapping sounds 
on the smooth rock. 

Directly above the red field he 
stopped. Here was where he and Du- 
vaurier had stood ; here they had seen 
the gray ship take off. Now five cop- 
pery ships were landing. 

They came in one at a time, sinking 
down cautiously, for the crews that 
Arkos had trained were not expert. But 
the first one to land had its port open, 
and a solid stream of muddy brown and 
black was flowing out of it when the 
last ship landed. 

The stream from that first broke up 
and became little clots of dark color, 
then single units — beastly things that 
ran and leaped and at last were herded 
into a solid mass by green men with 
drawn weapons. The karams could 
think — and be driven. 

From Fozan and the others came low, 
moaning sounds. Until Driggs said 
sharply: “Bring the fire pots, Fozan! 
Quick !” 

They ran farther along the ledge, 
Fozan and the others — naked, bronze- 
skinned men with red cloths about their 
hips. Then they headed back into the 
caves where water, trickling, had eroded 
the shale. They came back at once, and 
each was carrying a big earthenware 
jar that had once held wine made from 
strange fruits, in the house of Fozan’s 
father. Now the jars were empty and 
dry. 

Ten jars. But Fozan came with his 
arms filled with brush. 

He threw it at Driggs’ feet then took 



BLUE MAGIC 



111 




And then, unbelievably, the whole top of the mountain was moving — slowly 
at first — then — the sweep of it was too vast and too swift for eyes to see. 




112 



ASTOUNDING STORIES 



hold of Driggs’ arm and pulled at it. 
“Come,” he said excitedly, “for I do 
not understand, and it is like a vine yet 
is no vine.” 

He ran back toward the caves, taking 
Driggs with him. And a moment later 
Driggs was looking at what was un- 
questionably a length of fuse. 

It was white with a black thread 
woven through it. One end of it was 
lost back in the darkness of the caves. 
The other way it ran out across the 
ledge and, dropping, vanished under dry 
brush that had been piled above it. 

Back on the ledge the ten Xandrians 
called out suddenly and pointed down 
at the karanas, down at the red plain 
which, about the ships, had become a 
living sea — a pool, swarming with un- 
clean life. Driggs dropped the fuse and 
ran back. 

He threw broken twigs and bits of 
bark into the jars. Then he knelt and 
struck a match on the side of a jar and 
shielded it with his hands. The match 
flamed, and the Xandrians drew back. 

The dry stuff in the pots burned 
cleanly with little smoke, even when all 
ten pots were filled with fire. Driggs 
put in more branches, showing them 
how it was done, then again he gave 
orders which Fozan translated. 

THE MEN OF XANDROS ran 
swiftly away, each man carrying an 
earthen jar from which thin ribbons of 
smoke trailed out. Nine men, carrying 
the fire magic, but the tenth stayed with 
Fozan and Driggs and dropped more 
twigs and broken bits into the pot. 

Fozan said, “It is magic, Ranee 
Driggs, but what can such little magic 
do against them?” He pointed to the 
field. 

Driggs looked down, but he was look- 
ing at the base of the mountain where 
the forest began. The green roof of 
the forest was alive with writhing vines 
and waving leaves, but under them, 



down at the forest’s edge, a pile of 
brush had been heaped. 

Driggs said, “They know their sta- 
tions. They know where to go. Have 
they had time, Fozan?” 

And Fozan, waiting, said at last : 
“Now! They are there!” 

Then Driggs pointed down the slope, 
and the tenth man snatched up a pot of 
glowing coals and darted away, follow- 
ing a trail that vanished among the trees 
below. 

Down on the red field the milling 
karanas suddenly spread out, as water 
spreads when a dam lets go. The green 
men had released them at a dozen points, 
and the flood of beasts poured through 
and changed to thousands of individual, 
leaping, grotesque things, crazed with 
the man scents that filled the air. 

It was then that the first little cloud 
puffed up from the base of the hill, 
pulling other smoke after it into a 
straight column that rose and mush- 
roomed and, all in one instant, changed 
to billowing masses of black, sooty 
smoke. 

The man who had taken the fire 
magic down and had seen the little pot- 
ful grow into a fury of flame burst 
affrightedly from the forest and ran to- 
ward them. Down below, the karanas, 
spreading, had almost reached the edge 
of the field; the foremost were van- 
ishing among the trees. But now other 
smoke was rising. 

It came here and there at points back 
in the forest about the field. It rose 
straight and changed to black masses, 
and the separate columns broadened and 
spread until they joined together and 
made a curtain of black smoke sur- 
round the field. And now the curtain 
was no longer black but sultry red. 

At the foot of the hill, below Driggs 
and Fozan, the first fire was a solid wall 
of flame. It did not spread at once but 
swept up the hill, coming fast. 

Driggs said in a low tone: “That’s 

fine!” He was standing, leaning for- 

AST— 7 



BLUE MAGIC 



113 



ward, watching. “It’ll come up the 
hill,” he said. “It’ll make a draft, pull 
the other in, sweep it across — all across 
the field.” 

Fozan shouted: “They come back! 

The kcircinas! See !” — and pointed at fig- 
ures boiling from the forest around the 
field. 

But Driggs came up from his half- 
stooping pose and looked off to the left 
above the smoke, off where the dome 
of Dra Vonga’s temple still showed. 
Another shape was in the air there — 
the rounded gray bulk of a ship that 
rose and leaped into level flight and 
drove in fast toward them. 

It swelled as it came, then vaulted 
the curtain of smoke and swept down. 
It landed beside the coppery ships, and 
from its open port came a leaping, 
green-skinned man. 

It was Arkos. Behind him were oth- 
ers, a mob of them pressed tightly to- 
gether. And at the center of the crowd- 
ing figures were two dots of color, one 
red and one gold. 

For a moment Driggs did not breathe. 
He said in a tight whisper: “Kitten! 

Down there!” 

Then he flung quick words at Fozan. 

XXI. 

“GET BACK there with your men, 
back beyond the firebreak ; this’ll be 
hell in a few minutes !” Driggs was 
talking fast. “Take charge. Bring your 
men in after the fire’s out and clean 
up on that mob. You’ll have to do it. 

I won’t be here. I’m going down ” 

Then he was flinging himself down the 
slope but running sideways to clear the 
oncoming flames. 

An opening in the trees marked an- 
other path. He was below the fire be- 
fore it had spread out to block him, but 
the heat of it crisped the hair on one 
side of his head as he passed. 

He ran out into a pandemonium of 
sound. Barking shouts of the green 

AST-8 



men of Grokara, the cries of the kara- 
rns fleeing from the forest but not yet 
back to the ships, and over all the sul- 
len roar and crackle of flames. 

Sunlight was gone, and the red field 
was a place of murky darkness. Smoke, 
spreading flat but still up high, had 
swept across; then, suddenly, the dark- 
ened field took on new color as the 
mountain at Driggs’ back changed to a 
roaring furnace. 

The flames spread swiftly and swept 
up the slope as they spread. They 
seemed to reach the top in a single leap, 
then came together and shot on up like 
an enormous flaming torch. Suddenly 
the still air over the field began to move. 

The towering flames pulled it in. It 
swept toward the mountain from all 
sides, slow at first, then with hurricane 
force. Smoke came with it, and sparks, 
then flaming branches and furious heat 
— and with that the wall of flame about 
the field lay down flat across the inter- 
vening quarter mile of resinous forest, 
and its voice rose to a thunder of fury 
as it tore in. 

Under it all Driggs ran. He passed 
green men who paid no attention to him 
but scurried futilely back and forth. 
Then he was beside the gray ship. He 
saw Kitten and Dra Vonga side by side 
against a clot of green bodies. Green 
men were still massed at their backs. 
And in front and at the right, Arkos 
waited with his ray projector in his 
hand. 

Arkos’ lips were drawn back in what 
was meant for a smile of triumph. He 
raised his weapon as Driggs ran up; 
then Dra Vonga threw herself between 
them. 

The luster of her golden robe was 
dimmed here in this murky air. Smoke 
swirled down and stung in Driggs’ eyes, 
but he saw that Dra Vonga was hold- 
ing something in her hand. 

She flung herself toward him with 
that hand outstretched. “Take it!” she 



114 



ASTOUNDING STORIES 



cried. “It is the thunder death! Save 
us!” 

Driggs’ own gun was in his hand as 
he flung Dra Vonga clear. He flipped 
up on the gun and prayed that a good 
shell was underneath. And, in the very 
moment that light flashed from Arkos’ 
weapon, something struck Driggs and 
sent him sprawling. 

The blow had hit his whole body. 
Arkos was down, too. Dra Vonga, Kit- 
ten, the green men — they were all on 
the ground. 

For an instant, silence swept the field 
— silence, but for the roar of the flames. 
Then screams and barking calls and the 
cries of the karanas rose again. 

Driggs scrambled to his feet. Arkos’ 
projector was on the ground, and he 
kicked it away and swung his own gun 
once on them before he turned toward 
the mountain. 

SUDDENLY he knew what this 
meant. The fuse ! And there had been 
an explosion ! But who had done it ? 

Stones were rattling down on the 
mountainside. They were still raining 
when a second burst tore upward from 
the black ledge halfway up the slope, 
and rocks and trees became part of a 
geyser that shot up and sprayed out 
in air. 

Again the blast hit but less strongly 
this time. And then, unbelievably, the 
whole top of the mountain was moving. 

Driggs was shouting as he turned. 
“Inside! Get in! Get in quick! It’s 
coming down !” 

Dra Vonga was nearest him; he 
pushed her toward the open port. He 
reached for Kitten and jerked her to- 
ward him, then he was at Arkos’ side. 
He jammed his gun into the green flesh, 
and Arkos scrambled ahead of them 
through the port. 

Driggs’ voice was a scream as he 
shouted to make himself heard, for the 
voice of the mountain was rising above 
all sound. “The controls!” he told 



Arkos. “Lift it! Straight up!” He 
turned, and _ two green men who had 
followed whirled and threw themselves 
from the port under the muzzle of his 
gun. But Arkos stood very still, star- 
ing out. 

Driggs sprang for him and beat at 
his face with his gun. “Get up for- 
ward!” he ordered, but still Arkos did 
not move. Terror had gripped him, and 
he only stood while Driggs’ heavy gun 
hammered at his face and the green 
blood oozed out and ran down and 
dripped from his chin. 

Dra Vonga sprang to an opening in 
a metal diaphragm and was gone. She 
had run toward the bow of the ship and 
the control room. Driggs said, “If I 

only knew how ” Then Katharine 

was at his side, pulling down on his 
arm, and, after that, both of them stood 
as unmoving as Arkos and looked at 
the mountain that was coming down 
upon them. 

It moved slowly at first, just the upper 
half of the mountain. It came toward 
the red field and seemed to disintegrate 
as it came. Then the whole mountain- 
top lost all shape and melted into a 
roaring cataract — and after that the 
sweep of it was something too vast and 
too swift for eyes to see. 

A cataract — a pounding, thundering 
mass, rolling fluidly. It came toward 
them and fell, and the sound of it was 
not sound but something that beat upon 
them with terrible force. And the fall- 
ing torrent was still fluid as it spread 
out and swept toward them across the 
field in a wave of red earth and black 
rocks and hurtling, flung-out branches 
of trees. 

Then the wave was beneath them, 
and, miraculously, the ship was above 
it in air that shivered until winds took 
the ship and tossed it sickeningly. 
Driggs and Kitten clung to a metal 
cross bracing while the ship lurched and 
at last drove out and up. 

It was on an even keel and only gen- 



BLUE MAGIC 



115 



tly swaying when Dra Vonga appeared 
in the doorway of the compartment 
ahead. Driggs loosened his hold on the 
metal brace and walked unsteadily to- 
ward the open port. 

Smoke clouds poured past below, but 
through rifts in the cloud he saw where 
the fleet had been and where now was 
only shattered rocks and a fan-wise 
sweep of clean, new earth. All but one 
of the ships had been crushed; only 
one rounded, coppery surface showed 
fifty feet of batttered hull above the 
debris. 

Driggs looked up where the mountain 
had been — at the flat, inclined top of 
it. It was almost like Tabletop now. 
Then, at last, he turned toward Dra 
Vonga. 

SHE stood for a moment with her 
robe of some soft clinging golden cloth 
wrapped about her. She was breath- 
ing fast as she looked at Driggs. 

“True pictures,” she said, “were in 
the crystal. And, truly, an Earth man, 
by his magic, has saved Dra Vonga 
from great harm. This one” — she 
pointed at Arkos who stared insolently 
back — “turned against me. He led the 
green men of Grokara and made me his 
prisoner. But you have saved me. 
Now we will go back to the temple.” 

She turned and vanished then, and, 
a little later, the dome of the temple 
slipped past the port before the ship 
thudded gently. Silence was about 
them then, until, from somewhere 
ahead, a hissing sound led up to a ring- 
ing metallic crash as of some huge ob- 
ject falling. After that Dra Vonga 
reappeared. 

She motioned Arkos ahead of her 
and followed him out through the port. 
Driggs, the instant that she turned, was 
dashing through the opening into the 
compartment ahead. He went through 
the next compartment and two more 
after that before he came to the bow of 
the ship. There he stopped. 



Directly ahead of him was a metal 
table through which little levers pro- 
jected. The controls were like those 
in Duvaurier’s little ship, and it was 
the control board he had been look- 
ing for. 

But now, ahead of the controls, 
where the blunt nose and forward look- 
outs should have been, was nothing at 
all. The end of the ship had been 
sheared cleanly off and lay like a huge 
broken eggshell on the pavement out- 
side. A gleaming mechanism on a tri- 
pod stood at the point where the metal 
had been sheared. A violet light 
gleamed inside a tube, and that was all. 

Driggs turned and found Kitten be- 
side him. He touched her gently on 
the shoulder but said nothing, and she, 
too, turned. In silence they moved back 
and out where Dra Vonga waited. 

Dra Vonga glanced at Arkos stand- 
ing off at a little distance. She said, 
“Arkos will not escape now,” and smiled 
very slightly. 

Driggs’ answer was low. “No,” he 
said, “there won’t any one escape now 
— or ever.” 

Beyond the open end of the ship and 
past the intervening forest, clouds of 
smoke were mounting into the sky; the 
under side of the heaving, billowy 
masses were red with reflected light. 
Dra Vonga said softly: “In the crys- 
tal it has been like that always. What 
comes now I have never seen. I know 
only that we two, with our magic, can 
rule. But the crystal has told me this, 
that you must come of your own de- 
sire. And if you do not ” 

A little shudder passed through Dra 
Vonga then. 

“Beyond that,” she said, “I have not 
seen.” 

XXII. 

DRIGGS and Katharine stood at one 
side while Dra Vonga talked to Arkos 
in the harsh, barking language of the 
green men. Driggs’ clothes were torn 



116 



ASTOUNDING STORIES 



and stained, his face grimy and streaked 
with blood where a stone had struck 
him ; the hair on one side of his head 
■had been singed. Kitten, too, was di- 
sheveled. The remnant of her little red 
frock hung from one shoulder. 

She looked up at Driggs. “How did 
you do it?” she asked. “The moun- 
tain — and the explosion ?” 

Driggs said dully: “I didn’t do it. 

Some one else did. I don’t know who.” 
Dra Vonga called then, and Kath- 
arine moved away. 

Driggs said, “Don’t ” 

But Katharine answered in a low 
tone: “I am sure I would be de trop. 

If we are all to stay here ” She 

left the thought unfinished and walked 
away with Dra Vonga. 

“You will wait in the temple,” Dra 
Vonga told Driggs. 

IN THE TEMPLE ROOM, he 
stopped just inside the entrance. Light 
from the opalescent dome above 
flooded down and made the solitary fig- 
ure seem very small. He waited there 
in the silence and stared unseeingly at 
the floor. 

He was tired. He did not know what 
was coming and could not care. The 
sheared-off end of that gray ship had 
meant the destruction of their last hope 

of escape. And now 

He was looking down. He did not 
see the first color as it came. But he 
heard the sound, then he looked up and 
saw the blue flames. 

They came in the darkness. They 
began high up under the dome — pale, 
delicate flickerings that were almost 
colorless until a golden glow came at 
the center of them, and then the flick- 
ering flames were pale blue. 

Sound came from them; the singing 
flames of Dra Tor seemed almost speak- 
ing, and their message was one of tran- 
quillity and peace. The music stole into 
Driggs’ weary mind and seemed to flow 
on through his whole body, while a re- 



laxation that was pure bliss took pos- 
session of him. Then the flames ex- 
panded, and the sound grew with them. 

Blue flames, edged with gold — and 
gold, shot through with blue. They 
merged with inexpressible loveliness 
into rich greens which changed again 
and were slashed by other lines; and 
the lines were never still but wove them- 
selves into a deliriously bewildering pat- 
tern. And always they sang with a 
throbbing, sobbing sweetness in ever- 
changing harmony as intricate as the 
pattern of colors. 

At the last was a single curtain of 
flame that reached from floor to high- 
est dome and spanned the full width of 
the temple — a shimmering, quivering 
curtain. And a single chord of sound 
came from it and held on and still on, 
until billowing clouds of blue, so dark 
as to be almost black, rolled up from 
below. 

And with that came the full-throated 
crash of the bass in a roaring volume of 
sound that drove Driggs’ blood until it, 
too, seemed crashing through his veins. 

He could not look away, and he was 
drunk with color. While, under the 
onslaught of souhd whose very beauty 
was unbearable, every nerve was vibrat- 
ing. It was too much; he had reached 
the end of his endurance, when, through 
the thundering bass, a thread of melody 
pierced — a lilting refrain, so sweet, so 
entrancingly lovely that each nerve re- 
laxed. The melody sang tremblingly up 
and up. « 

Fading, the thundering bass became 
the merest echo of sound, and there was 
left only the seductive, bewitching 
beauty of that one lilting melody that 
held him breathless. 

He was waiting and did not know for 
what, but the air vibrated with ex- 
pectancy. Then, from the heart of 
those deepest dark-blue flames, Dra 
Vonga stepped and stood in utter im- 
mobility. 

Slim and beautiful, she stood against 



BLUE MAGIC 



117 



the pulsing blue; and, high above, the 
shimmering curtain changed to golden 
flame that shone down caressingly upon 
her. 

Always the melody went on, though 
it swelled and died and came again and 
mounted higher. And, at that, the glo- 
rious figure came slowly to life. 

Dra Vonga raised her arms. She 
was looking toward Driggs, reaching to- 
ward him. And again her dark-lashed 
eyes were softest violet, deep pools of 
promise. Her scarlet lips trembled. 
Her voice, deep in her throat, was call- 
ing. 

“Come,” she said. “Of your own 
wish and will, and because it is, Dra 
Vonga who calls, come ” 

And Ranee Driggs moved slowly for- 
ward. 

HE WALKED STIFFLY, like one 
in a daze. He did not feel the touch 
of the floor beneath his feet. He saw 
only Dra Vonga, glorious, irresistible, 
the incarnation of beauty beyond be- 
lieving. In all the heavens and the 
whirling worlds they held, there was for 
Driggs, in that moment, only Dra 
Vonga — and a song, wildly sweet, that 
wove itself into his mind and filled him 
and left no room for thought. 

Out of the dark-blue flames the roar- 
ing bass returned, and now it carried 
the melody, while that higher singing 
tone, too beautful for a voice, changed 
to a call of utter passion that struck 
like lances of sound through the roar- 
ing melody below. And the thunder 
of that bass was something that took 
Driggs’ whole body and held it while 
that wild refrain from above shot 
through him. 

He was close to Dra Vonga now. 
She was standing on the platform’s very 
edge, just above him, so near that the 
perfume of her body seemed part of 
the music. He had only to raise his 
arms and all this radiant beauty would 
be his. 



He knew it. He was lifting his arms 
when a new sound struck through. 
Then discord was where utter harmony 
had been — for somewhere, at some vast 
distance, a woman had sobbed. 

It pierced through all other sound 
and reached down inside of him and 
tore at him. Even the bass could not 
drown it out, although the thunder of 
those dark flames battered upon him. 
Driggs heard. He even heard the voice 
that came after and knew if was Kit- 
ten’s voice. 

“Ranee ” Kitten said, and that 

was all. 

Above the roaring bass a soaring 
song in lilting, golden strains broke 
sharply and became a cry of pain. Or 
was it Dra Vonga’s voice that had ut- 
tered that sharp cry? 

But that first sound had been Kit- 
ten’s voice, and, suddenly, the madness 
that possessed Ranee Driggs was gone. 
He looked back. Far across the room 
in an archway stood Kitten. Then he 
looked up at Dra Vonga, and his hands 
dropped back at his sides. 

He breathed deeply in new freedom, 
for the last allure had left. She was 
only another woman. And back there, 
across the room, Kitten was waiting. 

He looked down at the floor then, and 
after that he turned slowly and walked 
away. 

Sounds beat about him, discordant, 
jangling sounds, and he never heard 
them. He walked back to Katharine 
Putnam and held out his two hands. He 
said, “I was going down for the third 
time. Can you ever understand?” 

She said quietly: “Of course I un- 
derstand,” but made no move. 

“But,” Driggs went on, “it’s you I 
love. I’ve known it from the first — 
but I couldn’t say anything until I had 
got this other straight.” 

Kitten said, “Don’t! I do under- 
stand!” Then she flung herself into 
his arms, and her own arms went about 
his neck and clung. “Ranee ! Ranee !” 



118 



ASTOUNDING STORIES 



she sobbed. “I can’t stand any more. 
What are we going to do ?'” 

He held her then with both arms 
about her, but, slowly, they both turned 
and looked toward Dra Vonga. 

She had stepped back, but now she 
stood leaning forward, and the blue 
flames came up about her and made a 
shimmering of light. Her face was 
pale as if every drop of blood had 
drained back to her heart. But her eyes 
were hot with fury. 

She said, “The crystal did not show 
this, Ranee Driggs. Neither did it show 
the death that you and Kit-ten will die. 
But first you will be like Dra Tor — 
shriveled, and ugly, and horrible to see.” 

She straightened abruptly then, and 
a change had come to the shimmering 
blue about her, though what the change 
was Driggs did not know. Then her 
eyes opened wide with terror, while her 
lips parted, and she flung up both hands. 

“The flames !” she cried. “They 
burn ! They burn ! It is the lost magic 
of Dra Tor!” 

Her arms were still uplifted. There 
was no time even for a step. For, in 
one instant that held Driggs and Katha- 
rine transfixed with horror, Dra Von- 
ga’s creamy body changed to white 
flame that tore upward in a single 
straight line and left below it, at last, 
only something charred and black that 
toppled to the floor. 

The flames were roaring now with a 
new voice, and where there had been 
only blue was now sullen reds and yel- 
lows and sharp, vivid tongues that were 
true fire. It thundered upward with 
terrible speed; the whole end of the 
temple was ablaze, all in one moment, 
for the flames rose on a fearful blast. 

Smoke went with them, billowing out 
under the dome. And, suddenly, heat 
that was unbearable flashed upon the 
two who watched and drove them be- 
fore it. 

Driggs had Kitten in his arms. He 
was holding her so that his body was 



a shield as he ran at full speed toward 
the arched exit, while back of him the 
temple of Dra Vonga changed to an 
inferno, where flames soared upward 
and timbers of walls and roof became 
fire with explosive suddenness, before 
they loosened and crashed down. 

HE still carried her as he raced out 
through the corridor, across the bridges, 
above blue lagoons and on through the 
circular buildings. And, at last, the exit 
was ahead where the sun was shining 
on the plaza outside the temple. 

He could even see the gray ship and 
the broken end where Dra Vonga had 
destroyed it; then he was outside, at 
the top of the steps leading down to the 
pavement. He stopped there, and al- 
most let Katharine fall, for his arms 
were suddenly limp. He was looking 
across the pavement at another ship, a 
little, rusted, weather-worn craft, and 
at the man who stood beside it. 

For a moment he could only stare, 
while his eyes burned; then he swal- 
lowed hard, and his hands still touch- 
ing Katharine trembled. 

He said, “Duvaurier!” but it was 
only a whisper. Then he shouted it — 
“Duvaurier!” — and reached for Katha- 
rine’s hand as they ran, in the same in- 
stant, down the steps. 

Massed at some distance from the 
ship were green figures. Arkos’ 
scarred face showed among those who 
stood, but five others lay on the pave- 
ment in front of them. One of the 
crumpled figures raised up and screamed 
once before it fell back again. 

Duvaurier, standing beside the ship, 
was aiming a pistol at the green men, 
but he called over his shoulder to them. 
“Come quickly, m’sieu’ !” he said. 
“They can use their ray guns if they 
are closer, and my pistol is empty !” 

Perhaps Arkos understood. Or it 
may have been only the sight of the two 
who ran. He started forward at the 
sound of Duvaurier’s words, and though 



BLUE MAGIC 



119 



the others hung back he hurled himself 
in giant strides across the plaza toward 
the little ship. He held a ray projector 
in his hand, and the white metal glinted 
as he ran. 

But Driggs was tugging at his own 
gun. He pulled it from its holster 
without slackening speed, then stopped 
and swung up on it as Arkos aimed. 
The gun jolted back satisfyingly in his 
hand. 

Again he ran with Kitten beside him, 
until Duvaurier, whose face was chalk 
white and glistening with tears, was 
crying to them: “Tell me, m’sieu’, is 

she — is she ” 

Driggs stopped and held Kitten 
swaying at his side. He said gently: 
“Dra Vonga is dead” — then he gripped 
Kitten’s hand hard and followed where 
Duvaurier stumbled blindly into the lit- 
tle ship. 

XXIII. 

SPEED. Always speed. With three 
tiny cylinders brought together and 
aimed forward so that all the pull was 
ahead. Constant acceleration pressed 
them back against the rear wall of the 
tiny forward compartment, while they 
strained their eyes ahead in the direc- 
tion of travel. 

And out there a star changed at last 
to a globe, although before that time the 
cylinders had swung back until, after 
a time, the globe seemed beneath their 
feet. And, at last, continents and seas 
lay below them, and the little ship was 
driving in on a long, easy slant toward 
a feathery cluster that changed to enor- 
ous cloud masses as they drew near. 

Then, with Driggs saying nothing be- 
cause his throat was too tight, but only 
standing and pointing, Duvaurier said, 
“And now I will tell you and mademoi- 
selle what occurred 

“This is my second return to Earth. 
Once before I came here, after leav- 
ing you on Grokara, and as now I was 



on fast time. I went to where I knew 
would be explosives for already my plan 
was made. But I only intended to drop 
them like bombs. 

“Back at Xandros, I crept in on the 
darkened side where only Grokara 
shines ; then, flying above the forest, I 
came on as near as I dared and landed 
and hid my ship. But first, from high 
above, I had seen what you were doing, 
mon ami, and I comprehended the plan. 
So I added to that plan. 

“I placed my explosives in the caves 
on the mountain and laid a fuse to 
where your fire would reach it, thinking 
that the stratum of blue shale, once 

disturbed, might be a lubricant ” 

He stopped and flung out his two hands. 

“Check,” Driggs said. “But about 
the temple?” 

For a moment Duvaurier’s face went 
dead white. He licked his lips and 
looked ahead through a forward port 
and did not turn. 

“From on high,” he said, “I saw you 
land and saw the sabotage of the ship. 
Then I dared to come down. I knew 
another way to the underground room, 
and I went there, not knowing what I 
would do but wishing to help. 

“I found there, Dra Tor. He was 
the shriveled one, the little mummy, but 
I remembered him. He did not die, it 
seems, but must have been caught in 
his own flames.” 

Duvaurier paused then and glanced 
at his own hand that had felt the same 
withering touch. 

Driggs said, “O. K. She said — I 
mean I had guessed that.” 

“Yet,” Duvaurier continued, “though 
Dra Tor’s mind was gone, he still could 
play the music of the singing flames. 
He was moving his hands through many 
bands of colored lights when he saw me. 

“Then — was it fear — or a return for 
a moment of sanity? I do not know. 
But Dra Tor leaped to where other 
lights shone on a broad disk, and he 



120 



ASTOUNDING STORIES 



changed those lights, and there came 
the roar of fire, and I saw above me 
many hot blasts that ate through the 
ceiling of the room — like that! So I 
turned and ran and waited outside.” 

He had been talking fast. Now he 
stopped and again passed his tongue 
over his lips, and his hand on a little 
lever trembled. “And she?” he asked. 
“Was it the flames?” 

Driggs nodded. “Instantly,” he said. 
“She never knew.” 

BLACK MOUNTAIN was ahead of 
them, and the ship was settling slowly 
down where Driggs had picked this one 
peak from a vast, far-flung mountain 
empire. He could even see the clear- 
ing and here and there a part of the 
trail. It was all unreal and entirely 
unbelievable, but, at last, they were di- 
rectly above the clearing, and the ship 
had no motion except the trembling that 
came with the soft rumble of a motor 
that drove a generator and sent the cur- 
rent through Duvaurier’s wonderful gas. 

Katharine, looking down through a 
lower port, gave a startled exclamation. 
“There’s nothing moving!” she said. 
“It’s all standing still!” 

Almost under them was the corral. 
The horse was there, and the big roan 
had one foot raised and his head flung 
high. Wreckage was strewn across the 
clearing, and just outside the corral a 
fox made a brown blot of color, and 
its eyes gleamed. It, too, stood still. 

Only after a moment was motion to 
be seen. Then the horse’s one foot was 
sinking down, and another one raised 
slowly; and the fox also moved and 
drew gradually away from the fence. 

Duvaurier had opened the little port 
and was lowering a ladder of rope with 
wooden crossbars. He said: “I will 

not land, for to contact the Earth would 
change the vibration of me and the ship 
and all that is in it. Our magnetism, 
I think, would be discharged.” 



Driggs said, “You’re not landing! 
You’re not coming back !” 

Duvaurier looked away. He said 
slowly : “I have destroyed the only 

woman I ever loved. What is there for 
me here? I prefer to stay in the vibra- 
tion of that new time which Dra Tor 
created and which she used.” 

Then he looked up at them and smiled 
quickly, but his eyes were wet. He 
touched Driggs’ shoulder with his one 
good hand, then reached and took 
Katharine’s hand and bent and kissed it, 
“Do not forget Duvaurier,” he said. 
“And — who knows — it may be that 
some day I shall return? But go now. 
Go back. But do not forget, though 
in a moment it will be to you as if 
Duvaurier had never been.” 

They went down the swaying ladder, 
Driggs first, reaching up and steadying 
Katharine. Then he waited until she 
was beside him, and, in the same in- 
stant, they took the last step down to 
the ground. And in that instant the 
whole world came to life. 

All had been still. Now alders, at 
the clearing’s edge, were flickering; the 
wind came and touched them and blew 
the ragged edges of Katharine’s dress 
and lifted her brown hair away from 
her face. The big roan dashed madly 
for the far end of the inclosure, scream- 
ing with fear. While the bit of color 
that had been the fox flashed in a 
straight line across the clearing and van- 
ished into the woods. 

Driggs drew a long breath and looked 
at Katharine, then both of them raised 
their faces and looked above where the 
rusted ship had been. But now there 
was only the blue of the Sierra sky and 
a few fleecy clouds drifting. 

“In a moment,” Duvaurier had said, 
“it will be to you as if Duvaurier had 
never been.” And already it was un- 
real. 

But Katharine Putnam laughed in a 
shaky voice and looked down at the tat- 
tered remnants of her red frock. 



BLUE MAGIC 



121 



“Ranee ” she said. And again, 

“Ranee ” but could say nothing 

more. 

ANOTHER VOICE came before 
Driggs could speak; it came from the 
head of the trail in the familiar drawl 
of Ed Putnam’s voice. “What?” Ed 
Putnam was asking, “was that noise I 
heard? ’Twas kinda like thunder, but 
— well, if you two ain’t a sight!” 

He came out from among the big 
pines and stood looking at them and 
at the clearing. He was tall and lean, 
and his long face seemed longer when 
he was open-mouthed and with his jaw 
fallen. 

He said: “You will keep dynamite 

in your shack, will you! But you’re 
alive, both of you. Gosh, I had a pre- 
sentiment a couple of hours back when 
Kitten went mooning out of the lodge 

and started off up ” 

Driggs broke in sharply. “Say that 
over again !” 

“What do you mean?” 



“Say it again. I want to see if I 
got that right. You said it was two 
hours ago ” 

“Sure, it wasn’t any more than that.” 
Driggs said, “Two hours !” and 
waited and looked down at Katharine 
who looked back. “And it took you 
half an hour to get up to Tabletop, Kit- 
ten ; so it’s only been an hour and a 

half since then ” 

Kitten was looking at him. She said, 
“I don’t in the least understand. But, 
oh, Ranee, does it matter?” 

She still looked up at him, and her 
eyes were aglow with a light that Dra 
Vonga’s eyes had never known ; the 
eyes of a woman who gives with no 
thought of asking — eyes of love. Her 
face was flushed; her lips trembled. 

Driggs opened his arms — and, when 
he had her close, bent down. He said: 
“Now it’s this that’s like a dream. But 
this is real, too.” 

He kissed her then, on the lips, while 
she clung to him. “There isn’t any- 
thing else that matters,” he told her. 



THE END 



NEXT MONTH: 

ENTROPY, by Nat Schachner 

A great science-fiction novel. 

I 

Redemption Cairn, by Stanley G. Weinbaum 

The latest and greatest of his novelettes. 



Outlaws of the Stars, by Stanley Wade Wellman 



A novelette by an old favorite. 



CONES 



A tale of force which 
science could not fathom 



by Frank Belknap Long, Jr. 



H E had never seen such skies, 
dory beyond bright glory, 
wonder beyond wonder, un- 
furled and unfurling in the black celes- 
tial vault above him. The Earth and the 
Moon were the brightest of all bright 
stars. Outshining even the first-magni- 
tude suns in the immeasurable galaxies 
which spanned interstellar space, they 
circled about each other, displaying in 
their wheeling courses home fires 
sheathed in sky flame. 

Venus was a tiny green moon swing- 
ing across this field of glory, and the 
farther planets, which shone as stars, 
turned fully illumed faces toward the 
man from Earth. 

It was night on Mercury — night iti 
a world of day and night. Across a 
thin strip on the surface of the Sun’s 
nearest neighbor there occurred the 
familiar alternations of sunlight and 
darkness which Gibbs Crayley knew and 
loved. The liberations of the little 
planet, which rotated only once on its 
axis in its swift journey about the solar 
disk, had conferred a precious boon. 

Revolving at an uneven rate over an 
orbit of extreme eccentricity, with wide 
variations at perihelion and aphelion, it 
sometimes lagged a little in its rotation, 
and sometimes got ahead of schedule. 
This divergence splashed sunlight over 
on its dark face, and brought alternating 
night and day to a narrow strip of its 
hoary crust. 

Thus, the man from Earth had ex- 
perienced the precious solace of light 
change, of brightness after a period of 
shadows and of cold, comforting dark- 
ness when the solar glare with its deadly, 
short-wave radiations became intol- 
erable. 

They were longer days and nights 



than he had known on Earth in the days 
of his youth, but glorious all the same. 
A man could live here, stand upright and 
walk with springy step. Incased in a 
flexible, metallic space suit surmounted 
by a nonflexible helmet, with fifty-pound 
weights attached to his thighs and an 
oxygen tank strapped to his shoulder, he 
could survive. 

On the thin strip which did not ex- 
ceed two thousand miles in width at any 
point, the conditions of climate and 
temperature were sufficiently stable to 
support intelligent, incased and guarded 
life. On all the other portions of the 
planet there reigned scorching heat and 
a cold that froze all known elements 
solid. 

On the dark face the cold frequently 
fell to within a few degrees of the abso- 
lute zero, and on the bright face the 
sun shriveled the mineral face of its 
little progeny. Ten times as hot as the 
sunlight of Earth, the solar radiations 
blighted and blasted every alien shape 
of protoplasm. The dark face was in- 
finitely bleaker than Earth’s antarctic 
wastes; the bright face hotter than the 
sands of the Sahara. 

Gibbs Crayley was a social exile. He 
had experimented too audaciously, with 
germs, on Earth. Rawboned and un- 
gainly, with a rough-hewn, tremendously 
kindly face, he looked in all respects the 
opposite of Faustian. But a kind of 
Satanic detachment dwelt within him. 
He was at once fervent and cold — and a 
little dangerous. 

He had saved more lives than he had 
lost through his daring medical inno- 
vations, but his ruthless audacity in the 
sphere of bacteriology had encountered 
public hostility on Earth. In response 
to official pressure and the sting of his 




Gone was the horror now. It had been burned away by the 
white fire of a consuming curiosity. 




124 



ASTOUNDING STORIES 



own scrupulous conscience, he had ex- 
iled himself. 

He had become a space explorer, an 
adventurer of the skyways. Mars and 
Venus and the dark Plutonian wastes 
had known his stride, and he had de- 
scended into the lunar crates, and 
collected incredible flora from the 
meteor-pitted plains of a tiny asteroid 
far out in space. 

The great space ship of cobalt glass 
gloomed in the star-studded night be- 
hind him. Looking back, he saw an 
immense, melon-shaped mass flecked 
with Venus light. Beside him walked 
Mona Massin, who was too beautiful 
for Earth. Mona Massin was as cold 
and as fervent as Gibbs Crayley. 

Mona was cold to men who pursued 
her ceaselessly, and fervent when the 
fabulous glories of far planets beckoned 
her. The twenty-three-year-old Ameri- 
can girl was an astronomer by birth and 
choice, and to her the disciplines, exac- 
tions and rewards of scientific research 
were the whole of life. On Earth, men 
pursued her, but now, in the cold, star- 
hung Mercurian night she walked be- 
side a man too dangerous for Earth, and 
was unafraid. 

MERCURY was still unexplored. 
Earth colonies mushroomed into magni- 
ficence on the Venusian plateaus and the 
rust-red deserts of Mars, but Mercury’s 
proximity to the solar disk had hitherto 
discouraged all attempts at colonization. 

There were these two — and six others. 
All were citizens of the United States 
with the exception of Girolamo Lorenzo, 
the Latin biochemist, who was back in 
the huge space ship recovering from a 
severe illness. Intrepid Earthfolk, 
suicide battalion people, walking slowly 
in their suits of flexible difrolchrome, 
weighted down with high-frequency coils 
and oxygen tanks and thigh-weights, and 
living, from instant to instant, danger- 
ously. 

Here was high adventure indeed. 



Awe and alienage weighed heavily upon 
them as they advanced, but the heavens 
brought splendors that eclipsed the star 
pageants of Earth’s night skies; and 
the plain over which they moved sent 
stimulating little shocks up their incased 
bodies. The red metallic soil was elec- 
trically surcharged, and at night it 
glowed with a faints reddish phosphor- 
escence. 

In the vicinity of the space ship the 
terrain was level and flat, but far in 
the distance high peaks reared. With 
only their flash lamps to guide them, 
they moved cautiously, testing every step 
with electrodynamometer-tipped staffs to 
avoid the shock patches. 

A misstep in that alien realm and a 
man would crumple and his body sear to 
a crisp within a blasted space suit. For- 
tunately, the dangerously surcharged 
patches were scattered and infrequent. 

Mona’s cat had stumbled into one and 
its pathetic little body was now a charred 
cinder under the bright Mercurian skies. 
Mona’s Persian cat whose large green 
eyes had thrilled Mona with hints of 
strangeness and whose wilful playful- 
ness had delighted every one. 

Crayley had made a little space suit 
for it equipped with oxygen tank and 
weights, and it had followed her across 
the dark crust, the only feline quadruped 
ever to tread so near the Sun. Now it 
was gone — a crisp. 

Mona walked next to Crayley, and on 
her right walked William Seaton, an 
engineer from Vermont ; Parkerson, a 
middle-aged biologist; and a tall, gan- 
gling youth of twenty-two named Fred 
Wilkus, who hailed from Texas and ex- 
celled in the art of cookery. 

On Crayley’s left walked Tom Gray- 
son, a metallurgist with sand-colored 
hair and a twelve-cylinder mind; and 
young Allen Wilson, an associate mem- 
ber of the National Biological Institute, 
and instructor in invertebrate paleon- 
tology at Boston University. * 

The explorers intended to cross the 



CONES 



125 



habitable strip to the extremity of the 
dark face. It was their first long trek. 
For two weeks the great space ship 
California had lain in a natural hollow 
in the red metallic valley, under skies 
that blazed through an atmosphere of 
unbreathable gases by day and shone 
frostily by night. And for two weeks 
the little human voyagers had been far- 
ing forth for perilous momentary in- 
spections of that cold, bright, new little 
world. 

They had early discovered the electro- 
magnetic quality of the crust, having 
tested it with galvanometers, galvano- 
scopes and electrodynamometers, till the 
full strangeness and menace of the 
phenomenon were apparent to all. 

Parts of the soil were feebly sur- 
charged, parts seemed to harbor currents 
in the magnetic field that did not register 
predicably on any of their instruments, 
and in patches there was a voltage suffi- 
cient to rock a mountain. The shock 
patches, they called them, and avoided 
them as they would have avoided plague 
quagmires on Earth. 

There was no flora on the rust-colored 
plain which harbored the space ship. 
Slightly luminous dust and tiny rounded 
pebbles covered a solid substratum of 
crust that was as malleable as some soft 
metal, but infinitely more resistant than 
the soils of Earth. This crust was also 
rust-red in hue and unmistakably metal- 
lic, although the specimens which Tom 
Grayson examined revealed the presence 
of at least two elements unknown on 
Earth. 

There wasn’t much light on the 
planet’s crust. The tiny Venus moon 
cast a greenish glow, and the constella- 
tions, which were brighter than all the 
blue-and-orange giants in the arch of 
Earth’s skies, contributed brighter star- 
light than Crayley had ever known. Yet, 
despite this celestial fanfare the dark- 
ness was only faintly relieved by nebu- 
lous outlines that wavered and engulfed 
the little band. 



BEYOND the goggle-eyed helmets of 
their space suits surged air, tainted with 
heavy gases and ionized by cosmic rays. 
Crayley was thankful for the oxygen 
which surged behind the goggles and, 
as he moved over the unpredictable ter- 
rain, he altered the release gauge on the 
tank strapped to his shoulder by two 
degrees. He knew that as the flow 
diminished he would breathe less freely, 
but oxygen here was more precious than 
water on the deserts of Earth, and he 
could not afford to squander it. 

He turned his head and gazed with 
disapproval at the girl by his side. “No 
place for women,” he mused. “Perky 
little fool, that’s what she is. Getting 
hysterical because her blamed cat got 
singed. Probably her idea is to have 
a swell time getting plastered on oxygen 
while we’re getting blue in the face on 
emergency rations.” 

Mona Massin hadn’t moved her gauge 
one little bit. It still stood at a luxury 
level. At imminent risk to himself 
Crayley raised his electrodynamometer- 
tipped staff and whacked her oxygen 
tank loudly. 

Within the goggles of her helmet, 
Mona’s eyes flared. She wanted to raise 
her staff and hit back, hard. She knew 
what he was trying to convey. But she 
had plenty of oxygen, enough to last 
until they reached the frozen face, 
turned around and trekked back to the 
California. He was just trying to 
humiliate and annoy her. 

Suddenly, she obeyed her impulse. 
She actually raised her staff and swung 
it toward Crayley’s incased form. As 
the wand of metal swung toward him 
Crayley jerked violently and his huge 
body stiffened. His electrodynamometer 
had recorded a mountain-moving charge 
in the patch of illumed soil before him. 

As Mona’s staff whacked against his 
shoulder he swooped sidewise, caught 
her about the knees, and carried her 
swiftly backward in a running tackle. 
The man on Crayley’s left, not under- 



126 



ASTOUNDING STORIES 



standing, stepped forward into the shock 
patch. For some inexplicable reason his 
own electrodynamometer had failed to 
register. 

One second he was stepping confi- 
dently forward into the illumed semi- 
circle cast by his electric torch, the next 
only a part of him could be seen wav- 
ing frantic hands in the Venus light. 
There was a burst of flame that blotted 
out the stars. The lower portion of his 
body shriveled, was consumed. 

Like a dry leaf in a blast furnace, 
young Grayson’s limbs withered into 
inert ash with a faint, hissing sound. 
The upper portion of his body came 
down with a horrible thud on the soil 
and a scarlet banner swiftly widened at 
the feet of Parkerson, Seaton, Wilkus 
and Allen Wilson. 

For an instant, the four men were 
too appalled to move. Gazing through 
their goggles at the hideous spectacle of 
a limbless torso, space suit blasted away, 
spinning upright on a red field, they ex- 
perienced a caustic kind of horror. 
Light spiraled from sandy hair gal- 
vanically extended. Faster and faster 
spun the body and then — flame merci- 
fully engulfed it. 

Crayiey helped his companion up, 
threw his right arm about her shoulder 
to steady her. She flung him away from 
her, stumbled to the edge of the shock 
patch and was caught and held by Fred 
Wilkus. There was no attempt at com- 
munication. Messages in sign language 
could have been exchanged, but weren’t. 
They moved on almost instantly to 
avoid funking — like aviators going up 
a second time after a crash. 

The three young men and Parkerson 
fell into line with Mona and Crayiey. 
They were the leaders, these two, how- 
ever much they appeared to dislike one 
another : Mona, too beautiful for Earth 
and Crayiey, too impersonal and ruth- 
less. With slow steps they resumed 
their journey into the dark Mercurian 



night, with only their torches and metal- 
lic staffs to guide them. 

II. 

IT WAS nearly an hour after the 
horrible galvanic accident, when Gibbs 
Crayiey stopped suddenly in his tracks 
and stared through his goggles with wide 
eyes. On the torch-illumed semicircle 
of soil before him something had moved. 
Mona saw it, too, and she threw out her 
right arm, gently shoving back the two 
beside her. 

Only Fred Wilkus on Crayley’s left 
moved forward into the region of 
dubious stirring. He did not recoil or 
shrivel, but stepped right through it and 
continued to test his way with his staff 
on the level terrain beyond. Observing 
this, Crayiey and the others knew that 
it was not a shock patch which con- 
fronted them. 

But they were less confident than 
Wilkus. They hesitated before advanc- 
ing, their four staffs meeting experi- 
mentally above tire region of the stirring. 
Only the sand had stirred. As though 
blown by a faint breeze, the fine par- 
ticles of metallic dust which covered the 
surface stratum had assumed a gro- 
tesque and nearly symmetrical pattern 
beneath their extended staffs. 

Crayiey knew that there was no 
breeze. The weather needle on Mona’s 
helmet did not even vibrate. He raised 
his gloved hand and made signs in the 
torchlight. 

“Something moved there,” he con- 
veyed with his fingers. “Invisible 
energy, perhaps. Watch; be careful.” 

They advanced again, less confidently. 
Three yards ahead of them Fred Wilkus 
was smiling cynically within his helmet. 
“The cautious old fool,” he ruminated. 
“I can’t figure what Mona sees in him. 
He has to test everything. She says it’s 
the scientific temperament — I’d say, 
plain nuts.” 

It was the last thought that ever 



CONES 



127 



stalked the corridors of his brain. A 
little to the right of him, a bright, purple 
light flashed in the darkness. A scream 
was wrenched from his twisted mouth 
behind his goggles. His arms wrapped 
themselves about his body; his testing 
staff went clattering. The light moved 
nearer, hovered for an instant above 
him. 

When Crayley picked him up he 
seemed as light as Mona’s little charred 
cat. The body within the space suit had 
become a husk of flabby flesh over pro- 
jecting bones. Crayley’s scalp tight- 
ened. He seemed to be holding a nearly 
empty suit, and when he flashed his 
electric torch on the goggle-eyed helmet 
he saw beyond the quartz a face that 
seemed almost a skull, two eyes that 
shone with the light of idiocy, and a 
mouth that drooled. 

He flashed off the light, and stood, for 
and instant, in nearly total darkness, 
holding the awful burden. The others 
were coming toward him, swinging their 
torches in wide arcs. An ordinary man 
would have cried out, or sobbed in 
terror. But Crayley merely snapped off 
the light so that he could think more 
clearly. The thing staggered him, but 
he did not experience fright. 

Mona was the first to reach his side. 
She splashed torchlight over him, over 
his burden. 

Her gloved hand went up ; her fingers 
moved. “What happened? An electric 
patch?” she conveyed. 

Crayley’s helmet turned slowly in 
negation. 

“Then what?” 

Crayley’s fingers moved. “I don’t 
know. I saw a bright flash, and he went 
limp. Look here.” 

He snapped his flashlight on again, 
focused it on the goggle eyes in Wilkus’ 
helmet. Mona peered, and cried out in- 
voluntarily. A drooling, idiot face 
looked at her, with eyes that were 
viscous and uprolled. 

Crayley’s fingers conveyed : “We 



can’t go on now. We’ve got to get him 
back to the ship, quickly.” 

The others came up, clustered about 
the tall scientist and his limp burden. 
Mona’s fingers explained: “We’ve got 
to go back. Wilkus is horribly injured.” 

Parkerson was the first to grasp the 
urgency of the situation. He stepped to 
Crayley’s side and took part of Wilkus’ 
weight upon his shoulders, although it 
was so negligible that Crayley could have 
borne it alone. Mona drew the two 
young men back into line, and with 
leaden hearts the entire party retraced 
their steps on the dark plain. 

Imbued with abnormal caution, they 
now swung their staffs in wide arcs be- 
fore them, but they did not encounter 
any shock patches until the vast, gleam- 
ing bulk of the California loomed in 
reassuring relief against the sky. Then 
Mona’s electrodynamometer recorded 
one about five hundred feet from the 
stern of the great ship, and the party 
made a cautious circuit about it. 

A MOMENT LATER, they were 
ascending a gleaming ladder over a 
curving surface of cobalt glass. As they 
surged upward, Crayley and Parkerson 
struggled painfully to keep their burden 
upright between them. They crawled 
beneath enormous hatches, and down 
another ladder inside, and along a short 
corridor that blazed with cold light 
lamps. Crayley threw a switch at the 
end of the passage and the crescent- 
shaped hatches descended and fell into 
place with a sharp, metallic clang. 

They went down still another ladder 
and emerged into a longer and wider 
passageway lined with circular, metal 
benches with cylindrical legs. Crayley 
gently eased down his burden on one of 
these and sank down beside it with a 
relieved sigh. Mona seated herself 
opposite and fumbled with the screws of 
her helmet. Across from her sat 
Parkerson, and beside her young Seaton 
and Allen Wilson. 



128 



ASTOUNDING STORIES 



Parkerson was watching her within 
his helmet. He had eyes only for her. 
Despite the limp horror that rested on 
the bench beside him he had eyes only 
for the woman who was too beautiful 
for Earth. 

Crayley got his helmet off first. He 
lowered it swiftly to the bench and stood 
up. For an instant, his gaze swept the 
three men and the one woman and the 
thing beside him that was no longer 
moving. Then he unstrapped his oxygen 
tank and thigh weights, and wriggling 
out of his suit deposited it in inside-out 
disarray on the bench beside Parkerson. 
Sweat gleamed on his pale brow. 

Parkerson’s helmet came off next, 
then Mona’s and Wilson’s. Young 
Seaton’s face was as white as the Venus 
moon’s when it came into view. There 
ensued further emergements, gasps and 
grunts in the cold, lamp-illumed passage- 
way. Every one was looking at Mona. 
Every one wanted to be sure that Mona 
was all right before the limp suit yielded 
a shape of horror. 

Mona stood with her helmet in her 
hand, staring; with frightened, anxious 
eyes at the limp man, and, for the first 
time in her life, indifferent to all else. 
Only Crayley ignored her. He had 
glanced at her anxiously for an instant, 
but now he wasn’t observing her at all. 
He was nervously engaged in unscrew- 
ing the helmet of the injured man. 

The helmet was lifted off to the 
accompaniment of divergent reactions. 
Parkerson’s features contracted and his 
teeth clamped down over his lower lip. 
A low moan rippled over the teeth of 
white-faced William Seaton. Allen 
Wilson simply threw -his arm before his 
face and sank down on a metal bench. 

Crayley ’s eyes blazed. Hastily, with 
tremulous fingers, he stripped the space 
suit from the stricken man. Wilkus’ 
shrunken, white body was a ghastly, piti- 
ful mockery of the human form. 

Mona saw the shriveled body, the 
drooling, idiot face moving, jerking 



about on the bench. She saw the empty 
space suit on the floor, and glanced 
swiftly in turn at each of the silent men 
— Seaton and Wilson sitting appalled on 
the benches, Parkerson staring in horror, 
Crayley staring with tight lips and shin- 
ing eyes. For fully ten seconds she 
stood without a sound, staring too. 
Then she crumpled. 

III. 

WHEN she opened her eyes again 
she was lying on the berth in her own 
cabin. Parkerson was standing at the 
foot of the bed, staring down at her. 
She couldn’t recall, for an instant, where 
she was, what had happened. Then the 
pitiful, hideous memories returned, 
flooding her brain. She sat up with a 
little cry. 

Dr. Henry Parkerson had eyes only 
for her. It was shocking and disturbing, 
at such a moment. He moved to the 
edge of the berth, sat down and took 
her small hand in his. 

“Frightened, child?” he asked. 

She looked at him. “No — not fright- 
ened. What has happened to Wilkus ?” 

Parkerson avoided her gaze. 

“Tell me,” she insisted. 

“He died,” said Parkerson. 

Mona was relieved. The strained look 
went out of her face, and she moistened 
her dry lips with her tongue. 

“I’m glad, she said. “I am not a 
sentimentalist.” 

“Crayley is an inhuman beast,” said 
Parkerson, in an embittered tone. 
“While Wilkus was still alive he took 
him to the laboratory and ” 

Mona’s face grew strained again. 
“Yes?” 

Parkerson shrugged. “How do I 
know what he did? Killed him, per- 
haps.” 

Mona moved swiftly to the edge of 
the berth, gripped the metal leverage rail 
which ran parallel to the pillows and 

AST-8 



CONES 



129 



descended to the floor. “I am going to 
him,” she said. “Where is he now ?” 

“He is still in the laboratory,” said 
Parkerson. 

He placed himself squarely before 
the door. 

“Mona,” he pleaded. “I must talk 
to you. You don’t even realize how 
much I adore you. You are so lovely 
that just looking at you is a torment. 
I’m afraid poor Lorenzo is cracking up. 
He’s been brooding, torturing him- 
self ” 

“It’s just his Latin temperament,” 
said Mona coldly. “It’s just the in- 
fluenza wearing oflf.” 

Parkerson shook his head. “It’s you, 
your great beauty. It has turned the 
heads of every one on this ship. I don’t 
know why I’m pleading Lorenzo’s case 
when I’m desperately in love with you 
myself. Mona, I ” 

Mona looked at him steadily for an 
instant. The contempt in her eyes was 
blighting. “You are a sentimental weak- 
ling,” she said. She took his arm and 
simply pulled him aside. As she slipped 
through the sliding metal portal she saw 
his shoulders sag. She felt both con- 
tempt and pity for him. 

Crayley and she understood one an- 
other. At least, she understood Crayley. 
An impersonal flame consumed him. 
Never was a man more detached, more 
passionless. Love to Crayley was a 
sickly flame in a barren land, which tar- 
nished the bright glow of wisdom’s lamp. 

SHE found him beside the withered 
body of Fred Wilkus. He raised his 
eyes and scowled when she entered the 
laboratory and shut the sliding door 
behind her. She walked toward the 
table where the dead man reposed be- 
. neath a rubber sheet. 

“Parkerson told me you found it 
necessary to kill him,” she said. 

Crayley looked at her. He had al- 
ways thought her a rash little fool, but 
he had to concede that her impersonality 

AST— 9 



matched his own and was really magni- 
ficent. 

“At least we are capable of mercy,” 
said Mona. “The others are callous, 
sentimental barbarians who delight in 
suffering.” 

Crayley’s scowl increased in volume. 
“Don’t be so grandiose and self- 
righteous,” he said. “The others were 
conditioned from birth in a sloppy, sen- 
timental tradition. No man is respon- ' 
sible for his conditioning.” 

“But you did kill him.” 

Crayley shook his head. “I didn’t 
have to send him out mercifully,” he 
said. “He died before I could etherize 
him.” 

“What did you find?” she asked. 

“Something rather horrible, Mona — 
horrible, and incredible.” 

On a white-topped table behind him 
a lamp was burning. Its intense flame 
cast a flickering radiance on a number 
of surgical instruments arranged in 
rows, test tubes in a metal rack, and a 
pair of discarded rubber gloves. Obvi- 
ously, Crayley had concluded his exam- 
ination. His hands were bare ; the ether 
cone with its massive base of bellows 
had been wheeled into a corner of the 
laboratory, and a rubber sheet covered 
the still form of Wilkus completely. 

But Crayley was eager to share his 
discovery. He knew that Mona had an 
appreciative mind. Her mind was really 
the only thing about her that appeared to 
fascinate him. He said suddenly: “I’ll 
show you, Mona.” 

He stepped to the table and removed 
the sheet. Mona turned pale. The body 
of Wilkus was rigid and blue — it had 
turned blue all over. It looked as though 
it had been poured on the operating 
table. But Mona wasn’t going to faint 
this time, if she could help it. She 
gnawed at her lower lip and dug her 
nails into her palms. 

“He should have died out there,” said 
the calm man beside her, gesturing with 



130 



ASTOUNDING STORIES 



his hands. “His vitality seems to have 
been tremendous.” 

Mona said : “It’s ghastly, Gibbs.” 

Gibbs Crayley scowled. “So is all 
life, Mona. Here, and on Earth. 
Ghastly, or very great. When we pene- 
trate beneath the surface cruelty, the 
essential parasitism of nearly all living 
forms, we uncover a base of sublimity. 
I mean, life everywhere is so stu- 
pendously complex, so unpredictable, 

so ” He shrugged. “But perhaps 

it all came about by chance, even the 
strange and utterly alien life forms that 
must exist here.” 

He had put on his rubber gloves 
again, and was gripping the base of the 
burner. While Mona watched, horror- 
struck, he raised the flaccid, bluish hand 
of the dead man and moved the burner 
toward it. 

“Look, Mona,” he said. 

The intense blue flame enveloped the 
hand of the corpse as far as the wrist. 
The flame flared, shot out fiery jets of 
radiation that looked like miniature 
replicas of the solar prominences. It 
turned greenish, then purple, then blue 
again. It swirled in fiery billows about 
the limp, flabby flesh — coruscated, soared 
and subsided, as Crayley moved the 
burner here and there over the lifeless 
member. 

“That hand has been dipped in hydro- 
chloric acid, dilute solution,” he said. 

Mona’s brow was furrowed. Gone 
was the horror now. Like the vestigial 
stirrings of terror in Crayley’s mind, it 
had been burned away by the white fire 
of a consuming curiosity. 

Crayley turned to the table again, 
picked up a thin glass slide with his 
gloved hand, held it before the fire- 
ensheathed flesh. 

“Look through that glass, Mona,” he 
commanded. “What color do you see?” 

“Yellow,” said Mona, in a hushed 
whisper. The wonder of it was break- 
ing all about her in crackling waves. 

“Only the faintest tinge of orange in 



the flame,” he said. “And when you 
view it through green glass it looks 
yellow, not green, as it should.” 

“Then there’s no calcium at all,” said 
Mona. “No calcium even in — in the 
cells of his body.” 

Crayley nodded. “Apparently not. 
We know that when calcium compounds 
are moistened with hydrochloric acid 
they turn the Bunsen flame deep orange. 
Strontium also turns the flame orange- 
red, which often conceals the character- 
istic calcium glow, but strontium shows 
yellow under green glass. The faintly 
orange tinge was undoubtedly imparted 
by strontium. Calcium would show 
finch green under green glass.” 

His eyes were bright with the wonder 
of discovery. “I used spectroscopic tests 
to make sure,” he said. “The character- 
istic lines of calcium, orange and green 
and faint indigo, were wholly absent. 
Mona, something dissolved all the cal- 
cium in Wilkus’ body.” 

MONA’S EYES were shining as 
brightly as those of her companion. 
They were a strange pair, inhuman, de- 
tached, emotion-seared only by the 
science flame within them. 

“But could a man live if ” 

“A little while, apparently,” said 
Crayley, anticipating her thought. “I 
would have said no, but we can’t dispute 
this evidence. The withdrawal of cal- 
cium from all the cells of his body con- 
stituted a kind of melting out, release 
or flowing away of tissues and plasma. 
His body shriveled and melted like tal- 
low in hot sunlight. But apparently the 
neural patterns were not destroyed com- 
pletely. Motor and sensory nerves 
functioned, though the brain relapsed 
into idiocy.” 

“But what caused it?” asked Mona. 

“Only one thing could have caused it,” 
replied Crayley. “Radiation. Invisible, 
spectrum-ray radiation, more intense 
than anything we have ever known on 
Earth, a terrific bombardment by ultra- 



CONES 



131 



violet. Not just waves filtering through, 
but some inconceivably powerful con- 
centration of ultra-violet such as must 
exist within a few million miles of the 
Sun. So-called black-sheep rays per- 
haps, which would be deadly to all life 
on Earth. 

His lips tightened. “Why, even the 
comparatively harmless members of the 
ultra-violet family will drain the calcium 
from protoplasm. Single cells, amoebae, 
slipper animalcules exposed to ultra- 
violet and whirled in a centrifuge will 
become viscous blebs in a few seconds — 
viscous blebs with a hardened core. 

“The radiation drains the calcium 
from the outer surface of the cell and 
deposits it about the nucleus. Such 
radiation as I have suggested would do 
that to all the cells of the human body, 
would drain off the external lime 
and ” 

Crayley shivered a little for the first 
time. “It is pretty horrible, Mona. But 
there’s a great wonder here, too. Out- 
side in the cold and darkness, there are 
intelligent beings, Mona. Mercury is 
not uncontaminated by the disease of 
life.” 

Mona stared, wide-eyed. “But ultra- 
violet doesn’t penetrate metal. How did 
the rays sear Wilkus through his space 
suite ?” 

“You are forgetting the properties of 
difrolchrome,” said Crayley. “Like the 
new space-suit and space-ship metals it 
is a silvern alloy. Ultra-violet will pene- 
trate silver — if the radiation is intense, 
and the sheet or screen is not too thick.” 

“What kind of life, do you think, 
Gibbs?” said Mona, in a grim tone. 

“I do not know. Something invisible 
or nearly so, that walks or crawls or 
glides in darkness. I saw a flash of 
purple light. We both saw the sands 
move. Something was resting on the 
sand and arose as we approached.” 

“But do you think the form was com- 
posed of invisible light itself?” 



Crayley shook his head. “Perhaps, 
but I hardly think so. I think it used 
the rays as a kind of weapon. Some- 
thing tangible moved out there.” 

He gripped the edge of the rubber 
sheet and drew it completely over Wil- 
kus’ body. Then he slipped off his 
gloves, and straightened out the objects 
on the table. His fingers were shaking 
a little. 

Mona said, “Are you going out again, 
Gibbs?” 

Gibbs Crayley nodded slowly. “I shall 
take the infra-red stroboscopic camera,” 
he said. 

Mona’s brow crinkled. “Why not 
just one of the ordinary infra-red cam- 
eras?” she inquired. “If you just want 
to penetrate darkness you won’t need a 
stroboscopic lens.” 

“Not merely darkness,” said Crayley. 
“I may need something beside a 1 plate 
sensitive to infra-red heat.” 

“But why?” 

“Suppose the shape were moving in- 
credibly fast. We use infra-red plates 
because the molecules of our retinas are 
insensitive to waves that are in the 
nature of heat rather than visible light. 
But the molecules of our retinas don’t 
register swift motion either. We see 
objects moving at terrific speeds merely 
as blurs.” 

“And no plate can correct that limi- 
tation,” said Mona, nodding. 

“That is true. But the stroboscopic 
lens can. It simply arrests the motion 
at one point, takes a dozen swift images 
at intervals of one ten-millionth of a 
second and telescopes them into a single 
image. The infra-red plates will take 
care of the darkness, but I shall need a 
stroboscopic lens to register movements 
too swift to effect chemical changes in 
the human eye.” 

“But what makes you think the ob- 
jects are moving incredibly fast?” asked 
Mona. 

“They are invisible, or nearly so. 



132 



ASTOUNDING STORIES 










That can mean one of three things. 
Either they are composed of some alien 
form of energy which emits light waves 
too long or short for visual perception, 
or they are moving so rapidly as to be 
perceptible merely as faint blurs, or 
they ” 

He scowled. “They are composed of 



radiant particles above or below invis- 
ible light itself in wave length. In that 
case, no instrument of science could de- 
tect them. But I think we can rule that 
possibility out, for waves below light 
would be odorless and hueless. Theo- 
retically they could exist, but that they 
could move anything tangible, or pro- 






CONES 



133 




It was the last thought that ever 
stalked the corridors of his brains. A 
bright light flashed in the darkness — 
moved nearer 






duce subsidiary radiation as substantial 
as ultra-violet is unthinkable. 

“We are then left with two possi- 
bilities : the forms are composed not of 
stable matter, but of invisible energy 
producing ultra-violet as a by-product; 
or, they are moving so rapidly that our 
eyes would perceive them in bright light 
as mere blurs, and in darkness not at 
all.” 

“It will be a terrible risk,” said Mona, 
quietly. 

“Perhaps,” said Crayley. 



IV. 

THE NEXT two and a half hours 
were to confirm Mona’s intuitions more 
grimly than Mona had anticipated, but 
a perverse fate denied Crayley the privi- 
lege of sharing the risk in person. On 
the way up to the main observation 
chamber at the rear of the vessel, the 
leader of the Mercury exploratory ex- 
pedition wrenched the tendon of his 
right ankle atrociously on a ladder rung. 

Parkerson and the two young men 



134 



ASTOUNDING STORIES 



stood white-faced and listened to him 
curse and rave. For the first time, he 
surrendered to expansive emotions with 
a volatile vehemence that did not even 
respect the presence of Mona Massin. 
The ankle wrench had thwarted him at 
a vital point. 

Mona thought: “He’s a tremendous 
human being with warts in any life-size 
portrait.” But Mona wasn’t shocked. 
She wasn’t even embarrassed. The 
provocation, she felt, was enormous, and 
she sympathized with him and wanted 
to harangue fate, too, in words as vigor- 
ous and as salty. 

Seaton and Wilson immediately vol- 
unteered to serve as proxies. They 
looked at Mona all the time they were 
getting into their space suits, kept star- 
ing at her through goggle eyes of quartz 
when their helmets transformed them 
into shapes of nightmare. 

Mona experienced a momentary 
twinge. They were so very young, so 
eager, so pathetically confident — so very 
much in love with her, too. She hoped 
that they would be careful. 

The stroboscopic camera was a com- 
pact and impressive device. A small 
metallic cone, about the size of an oxy- 
gen tank, surmounted a spectroscopic 
focusing panel and a curved, flexible 
carrier. In obedience to Crayley’s in- 
structions Parkerson had removed it 
from a storage container in one corner 
of the chamber, loaded it with a dozen 
plates and handed it to young Seaton. 

White-faced with pain, Crayley stood 
up and watched the two cumbersomely 
clothed and efficiently equipped youths 
climb awkwardly up a ladder to the cor- 
ridor above. Grimly he watched them 
disappear through a circular door and 
heard the air-suction pump wheeze, and 
saw the cold lights flicker as the portal 
clamped shut on their receding boots. 

Parkerson was staring steadily at 
Mona, in a kind of trance. But Mona 
had eyes only for Crayley. As a spasm 
of pain convulsed his features her own 



face twitched a little. She seized his 
sleeve and tried to draw him to one of 
the benches which lined the wall. But 
he refused to be guided. 

With a muffled grunt he jerked his 
arm free, limped painfully across the 
chamber, and seated himself in a metal- 
lic swivel chair before a network of 
interlocking mechanisms and a switch- 
board that glittered in the cold, light 
lamps. 

For a moment, he swayed in the chair, 
moodily staring at the heavy partition 
of cobalt glass, with compressed lips. 
Then he clutched a double throw switch 
and manipulated it with vigor. A faint 
whirring sound arose and a tiny open- 
ing appeared in the center of the wall 
above the massed mechanisms and circu- 
lar metal switchboard. Swiftly, the 
hole widened as the cobalt glass with- 
drew in overlapping crescents from an 
observation window of miraculously 
transparent glass. 

THROUGH the exposed window, 
Crayley stared grimly out into the black 
Mercurian night. At first he saw 
merely moving flashes of light on the 
faintly luminous metallic plain far 
below. Then one torch flare cut across 
the other, and the cumbersomely clad 
little figure of Allen Wilson stood out in 
-sudden, blinding relief. He was mov- 
ing forward very slowly and cautiously, 
with testing staff extended and electric 
torch focused on the soil before him. 

Suddenly, Crayley saw something 
which froze his heart. An orb of purple 
light shone clear and bright, for an in- 
stant, above the plodding, tiny figure. 
Then it vanished, and as it did so the 
figure before the semicircle of torchlight 
crumpled. Crayley’s face went gray. 

The torch flare of the other explorer 
continued to cut a bright swath across 
the alien terrain without for a full five 
seconds after Wilson’s torch and staff 
went clattering. Then it was lifted up. 
The light itself was lifted high into the 



CONES 



135 



air and its beams danced fantastically on 
objects far away. 

Crayley could not see Seaton’s form, 
but he could follow the youth’s move- 
ments by the shifting of the torch. The 
engineer had been picked up by some- 
thing, and was moving about high in 
the air. 

Crayley leaned tensely forward, and 
manipulated a rheostatic, control mech- 
anism near the center of the panel. In- 
stantly, the plain below was flooded with 
pale-yellow light. From an immense 
arc lamp in the stern of the California, 
light streamed out in wavering crescents 
on the dark soil. Crayley started vio- 
lently, sat rigid, and his eyes opened to 
their' widest expanse. 

High above the rust-red plain, the 
grotesque figure of Seaton was dancing 
and bobbing about. His difrolchrome- 
incased limbs were stretched wide. He 
seemed spread-eagled against a field of 
star-flecked blackness, crucified upon 
empty air. 

Crayley had the feeling that the jerk- 
ing figure was already dead. He turned, 
with sweat on his brow, and shook his 
head grimly. Mona and Parkersort were 
standing beside him, staring. All the 
blood had ebbed from Mona’s cheeks. 
Below the suspended man a vague, gray- 
ish blur seemed to intercept the light 
and dim the plain beyond. 

Suddenly, as they watched, the sus- 
pended figure fell to the ground. It 
appeared to strike the soil forcibly, 
turning over and over, and went careen- 
ing along the plain until it collided with 
the limp form of Allen Wilson. 

Both forms were horribly limp. The 
space suits had acquired a ghastly inert- 
ness. They lay spread out like empty 
sacks on the red Mercurian soil. Cray- 
ley could see the camera clearly. The 
little apparatus was standing on its cir- 
cular base a few feet from the limp 
bodies. Crayley swung about in his 
chair and manipulated another rheostat. 

The camera disappeared as the 



vacuum suction tubes at the base of the 
California roared into activity. Crayley 
swung about, shut off the beam control 
rheostat and said in a perfectly calm 
tone: “Get the camera, Parkerson.” 

Parkerson nodded, crossed the cham- 
ber to the vacuum tube receiver which 
stood in the center of a tangled skein 
of cold heat tubes, refrigerating wires, 
and complex oscillators. He clicked 
open the wafer-thin steel cover and 
thrust his hand deep into the tube. The 
cold of space seemed to gnaw at his 
fingers as he grasped the little camera 
and drew it forth. 

The camera had simply been exposed 
to a temperature of fifty degrees below 
zero and smoke poured from it as 
Parkerson carried it across the chamber. 
Crayley seized it with shaking fingers 
and broke it open. From its interior a 
thin sheaf of plates fell out into his 
hand. Crayley laid the camera down 
quickly and handed the plates to Mona, 
whose fingers were still warm. 

MONA held the plates firmly, and 
stared at them for an instant in fear and 
trembling. She did not think that the 
plates contained a single image. But 
she knew that if there were images 
visible on even one of the plates they 
might prove blasting and awful to her 
conventional, human self, and, to the 
scientist in her, more wonderful than 
all the stars of heaven. Fearfully she 
lifted the topmost plate and turned it 
slowly about. Covered with emulsion, 
sensitive to infra-red radiation, it had 
been automatically developed within the 
camera, and was very dry and brittle. 

The plate contained a clear image. 
Crayley sucked in his breath sharply as 
he stared at it. Mona simply stood 
quietly, hardly understanding, looking at 
the queer, cone-shaped object with con- 
tracted brows. Then a weird sensation 
of alienage rushed through her being. 

Crayley said : “I should say that it 
was a sentient form — perhaps not in- 



136 



ASTOUNDING STORIES 



telligent, but certainly sentient. It’s 
utterly unlike anything we’ve imagined, 
though.” 

It was impossible to judge the object’s 
size exactly, for the smooth plain on 
which it stood contained no other large 
object to serve as a gauge. But, by com- 
paring it with the scattered metallic 
pebbles which were of nearly uniform 
size, Crayley concluded that it was very 
large, about four times as tall as a man, 
and proportionately huge in its other 
dimensions. 

It was cone-shaped, but there was 
something vaguely and disturbingly 
lifelike about it. From the base of its 
tapering body a single long rod de- 
scended, and there were four rods pro- 
jecting sidewise from its narrow sum- 
mit. Where the base of the rod rested 
on the soil there were curious little flares, 
as though the shape were standing on a 
surface which gave off light in corus- 
cating flashes. 

It was really simply a pivoting or 
standing cone, with one leg and four 
arms, but something about its geometry 
was vaguely disquieting — more than that 
— frightening. Mona shivered when 

Crayley said suddenly: “Look at the 
second plate, Mona.” 

Mona obeyed, gasped. “There are 
three of them here,” she said. 

Crayley seized the plate and scrutin- 
ized it hastily. “By heavens, yes — three 
— and grouped strangely.” 

“Five on this,” said Mona, extending 
the third plate. 

Crayley spent more time over the 
eleventh and twelfth plates than over 
the others. When, at last, he raised his 
eyes his lips were set in tight lines. 

“I’m afraid we’re in imminent dan- 
ger,” he said. 

Parkerson started. “What do you 
mean, Gibbs?” 

“Simply this. I believe that these 
cones are sentient and intelligent entities 
which are moving so rapidly that we per- 
ceive them as faint blurs. I think they’re 



actually shapes of energy, moving fields 
of force, endowed with intelligence and 
conscious purpose — with a. central core 
of unstripped electrons, perhaps. 

"I’m sure they’re not protoplasmic, 
and I don’t believe they’re gaseous or 
mineral. It’s guess work, of course, but 
I think they’re connected in some way 
with the electromagnetic field, with the 
shock patches. We haven’t begun to 
fathom the mysteries of the electromag- 
netic field and energy transformation 
and I don’t believe we ever shall. But 
we do know that magnetism has a most 
powerful effect on light. 

“If we put a sodium flame before the 
slit of a spectroscope we get a bright 
double line. If we put the flame be- 
tween the poles of an electromagnet the 
line broadens. Here the experiment 
might be even more impressive. 

“Mercury’s crust is apparently an 
electromagnetic field of undreamed of 
potency. I believe that these cones are 
generators of ultra-violet radiation, and 
that they draw a kind of electromag- 
netic nourishment from the shock plates. 
They are energy shapes formed and re- 
plenished by the electromagnetic field. 
Don’t you see ? 

“All Earth life is in reality shaped 
by energy, too. Protoplasm itself is an 
electrical phenomena, shaped by energy 
and radiation. The mild conductor and 
transformer which we know as proto- 
plasm is the product of an environment 
not heavily charged with solar and 
crustal energies. 

“The earth is comparatively far from 
the solar disk, that great furnace of all 
radiant power. The deadly ultra-violets 
are slaughtered in our upper at- 
mosphere, other rays reach us in feeble 
dilutions. What do we know of the 
cosmic radiations at white heat, at full 
blast ?” 

He shivered suddenly. Mona turned 
pale, because he was not the shivering 
kind. 

“I think they’re planning to attack the 



CONES 



137 



ship,” he said, quietly enough. “They 
seem to lie forming into a kind of at- 
tacking unit. Just look at this picture. 
They’re all grouped about in a wedge- 
shaped formation, at least fifteen cones, 
with the tapering ends pointed at the 
ship.” 

He handed the last plate to Mona and 
swirled about in his chair until he was 
gazing downward at the nearly lightless 
plain far below. Beyond the observa- 
tion window only the star-blanketed sky 
was clearly visible. Below was black- 
ness, save for the faintest glimmerings 
of light here and there where the tenu- 
ous starlight and the Venus rays glit- 
tered on the points of tiny pebbles. 

But Cray ley knew that across that 
metallic stretch of soil, invisible shapes 
of power were hideously moving. He 
also knew that the cones were assembling 
on the immense shock patch which mush- 
roomed out into the darkness several 
hundred feet from the stern of the 
California. 

CRAYLEY gripped the arms of his 
metal chair and started to rise. As he 
did so, a violent tremor went through 
the great ship. There was a roar that 
drowned out all sound, even Parkerson’s 
choking gasp, and Mona’s scream. 
There was a slow detonation, that shook 
every object in the chamber. Crayley 
felt the swivel chair spin; he felt his 
heart leap within him. The floor seemed 
to rise up, suddenly and horribly. 

All about three terrified people the 
familiar silences were obliterated in a 
blast of sound that split the eardrums of 
Henry Parkerson. There ensued an in- 
stant of comparative silence, while the 
plates of the California emitted eerie 
cracklings! 

Then, into that swaying, blast-rocked 
chamber there stumbled another man. 
His face was a distorted mask of hate 
and fury; his gray lips writhed as he 
staggered across the floor. In his hand 



he held a blunt-nosed, blue-barreled 
flame pistol. 

Girolamo Lorenzo, the Latin bio- 
chemist had brooded on Mona’s un- 
earthly beauty too long and too intensely 
for his own peace of spirit. The flame 
gun in his hands spat its lethal charge 
before he reached the center of the 
chamber. Parkerson was swaying di- 
rectly in the line of fire. As he jumped 
frantically aside, a long tongue of cold, 
green flame spurted toward him, and 
wrapped him completely about. 

Crayley leaped from his chair with 
an alarmed cry. In a fraction of time 
his brain had grasped the significance of 
the explosion and its sequel. Somehow, 
the poor, crippled maniac, aflame with 
jealous rage, had descended into the 
propulsion chamber and exploded a 
rocket charge. The California was now 
clear of Mercury’s crust and plunging 
skyward at a steadily accelerating speed. 

Crayley shouted. “Get down, Mona. 
Throw yourself down.” 

He hardly expected that Mona would 
obey. She was swaying rigidly against 
the control panel, too stunned and utterly 
bewildered to duck or cry out. But he 
shouted in hopeless desperation, to draw 
the maniac’s fire. 

Girolamo Lorenzo ceased to advance. 
He turned slowly about, and leveled the 
snub-nosed, still-smoking pistol at Cray- 
ley’s head. 

“No one of you shall live,” he said. 

Crayley’s features were perfectly com- 
posed. It was the end, of course. But 
he had read nature’s book fearlessly, 
walked with rare spirits, and dared the 
gulfs between the planets. He had no 
fear of death. 

“You poor devil,” he said. “Don’t 
you realize what my death will mean? 
You can’t pilot the California without 
the knowledge inside my skull. If you 
burn my brain you’ll be lost in space. 
Mona will die, too. If you want to 
kill ” 

Crayley went suddenly white. His 



138 



ASTOUNDING STORIES 



speech congealed. Before him the pale, 
tortured face of the biochemist was 
changing color. His skin had become a 
coppery red in the steady radiance of 
the cold, light lamps. For an instant, 
this coppery hue persisted. Then it 
deepened to a glossy black. Though his 
rage-convulsed lips still continued to 
writhe back from teeth the color of 
blood his eyes seemed to see nothing. 

The pupils were faded, and stared 
from an atrophied expanse of black and 
shriveled skin. Suddenly, as Crayley 
gazed horror-struck, the Latin’s squat 
frame went taut from crown to toe. 
The torso stiffened and the arms went 
up and out. The legs jerked upward as 
though a puppet master had manipulated 
them from above. 

The body rose up from the floor, and 
hovered, for an instant, with spas- 
modically jerking limbs, in the center of 
the chamber. Then blinding light 
flashed all about it. 

Crayley threw his arm before his face 
and staggered backward as an unimagin- 
ably destructive blast of deadly ultra- 
violet tore through the cobalt glass walls 
of the vessel, and cut a deep swath of 
radiant energy through the cold light 
glow. The blinding flame that wrapped 
Lorenzo was from his own burning 
body. Ten seconds after he had arisen 
he descended again. But nothing settled 
on the floor but a thin sprinkling of 
inert gray ash. 

MONA had fallen to the floor in a 
dead faint. She lay at the base of the 
control board and Crayley had to crawl 
toward her on his hands and knees. 
Stabbing pains were racking his right 
leg and thigh. When he tried to rise 
to his feet the pain increased. He 
dragged himself along the floor, across 
Parkerson’s limp form, a.nd over ten 
feet of vibrating metal. 

The great ship was now roaring 
evenly through the black ether gulfs 



toward Venus’ orbit. Another rocket 
charge had exploded in the basal com- 
partments and the magnetic stabilizers 
had begun to function. 

For one terrible moment, Crayley 
feared that Mona was dead. Blood 
pounded in his temples as he dragged 
himself to her side and slipped his arm 
beneath her shoulder. He lifted her 
slightly, staring with frightened eyes at 
her pale, unmoving countenance. 

Instantly, her eyelids flickered open. 
At first everything in the swaying 
square of her vision danced and wavered 
fantastically. She saw a white blur that 
slowly became a face. It was a familiar 
face, but it wore an unfamiliar expres- 
sion. Crayley’s rough-hewn, impersonal 
features were suffused with tenderness 
and relief. 

“What happened ?” she asked. “Some- 
thing lifted Lorenzo up. I saw a blaze 
of light. Is he ” 

Crayley’s arms tightened about her. 
He nodded grimly. “Lorenzo is gone,” 
he said. “The massed cones on little 
Mercury took a parting shot at us — 
blasted us with ultra-violet radiation 
when we were miles from the crust. 
Luckily it wasn’t a flooding radiation 
but a single narrow shaft, apparently, 
which bored through the walls of the 
vessel and killed Lorenzo instantly.” 

Mona’s eyes filmed a little. “Poor 
lad,” she murmured. “He ” 

“I know,” said Crayley. “He loved 
you — so did Wilkus, Seaton, Wilson 
and Parkerson — in their fashion. But, 
Mona, you will never know how deeply 
I ” 

There was a momentary pause when it 
seetped to Mona that he was going to 
say it rather awkwardly. So, to spare 
him embarrassment, she put her arms 
about his neck and drew his head firmly 
downward. 

— “love you, Mona,” he concluded, 
quite simply, at last, and there was only a 
faint, insistent droning in the observa- 
tion chamber when their lips met. 



TRIMMED 

EDGES 

Well, here it is. Another step ahead. The pages are certainly 
easier to handle, aren’t they? And it is better for filing. I believe, 
too, that the covers will hold better. 

It costs more money to put the magazine out this way — but if 
you play the game, I’ll play it with you. Have you introduced 
ASTOUNDING to any new readers lately? We need your loyal 
cooperation during 1936 if we are to keep our course progressively 
upward. 

I think you’ll enjoy this issue. Lovecraft comes back to science- 
fiction! Three novelettes! Ten stories altogether — eight of them 
complete! You know sometimes letters to Brass Tacks undertake 
to compare other magazines in the field with ours — but they in- 
variably overlook story-for-story and page-by-page value in such 
comparisons. 

I have struggled conscientiously for two and a half years to 
give you the biggest value in the field. One after another I have 
sought and brought back into the fold writers who had drifted away. 
It is easy to forget perhaps, but we need to remember how 
ASTOUNDING has brought the field back to life. 

And our program holds so much yet to be accomplished. There 
are some GREAT stories, by great writers, now in preparation. I 
am planning months ahead — because I have faith to believe YOU, 
every one of you, will pass the word along as to our consistent 
progress. 

Believe me, I need a GROWING reader audience to support 
what I have in mind. This month’s surprise with the smooth edges 
is proof of my good faith. May I have proof of your support? 

When I know endless thousands of readers are reaching out to 
enlarge our reading circle, I can move confidently toward our ul- 
timate goal — a science-fiction magazine that not only has no equal; 
but one which CAN’T be equaled! — The Editor. 




The Psycho Power 
Conquest 

by R. R. Winterbotham 



TEVEN WALLECK’S voice car- 
ried a deep, somber note. Had 
it not been for his clipped enunci- 
ation the tone might have been de- 
scribed as mysterious. But he had a 
businesslike manner about him. He 
turned to solving mysteries of the uni- 
verse rather than to creating new ones. 

“In many ways hypnotism is a con- 
dition closely related to normal sleep,” 
Professor Walleck told his assistant, 
young Vance Gibbons. “On the other 
hand, there are certain characteristics 
which make hypnotism different from 
ordinary sleep. It lies on the fringe 
between science and hokus-pokus and 
for that reason it has become one of the 
sacred cows of science, neither to be 
overly exploited nor explored. 

“There are a number of things sci- 
ence would like to know about hypnosis, 
but the subject is approached carefully, 
lest scientific reputations be jeopard- 
ized.” 

“And telepathy, I suppose, is one of 
these things?” Vance put in, with one 
of his serious smiles. 

“Yes, if there is such a thing as te- 
lepathy it must be related in some way 
to suggestion, or hypnotism. Scientists 
have run across several things that have 
startled them — coincidences, perhaps, 
yet so strangely recurrent that the 
word coincidence does not wholly ex- 
plain. 

“I have in mind an experiment com- 
pleted a year ago in an Eastern uni- 
versity. Unhappily, I made no note of 



it at the time and I have since lost the 
clipping. It was conducted under sci- 
entific laboratory conditions, yet it dis- 
closed that in a group of subjects if 
half of them knew certain facts the re- 
maining half could learn the truth in a 
proportion higher than could be ac- 
counted for by mere guesswork.” 

“But such a proportion would not be 
beyond mathematical possibility, in one 
isolated experiment.” Vance looked 
well pleased with himself for this ob- 
servation. 

“No, not in one experiment,” asserted 
the professor, “but my own trifling ob- 
servations corroborate these results. If 
there is no telepathy there is, at least, 
contagion of thought. 

“Just what is thought? An electrical 
impulse? If so, it should obey laws 
governing electricity. One nervous sys- 
tem, delicately attuned to another — I 
think en rapport is the term used — 
should be able to receive impulses just 
as easily as a radio receiver picks up 
radio signals. Psychology is a new sci- 
ence. As great discoveries lie ahead in 
that field as those in the field of astron- 
omy at the time of Galileo. 

“For instance, how many times have 
you and I felt a weird realization as 
we did something or said something: ‘I 
have done, or said this before.’ Science 
calls it an illusion of memory and in 
extreme cases it is said to amount to 
a type of insanity called paramnesia. 
Yet it occurs in sane minds. Still, call- 




THE PSYCHO POWER CONQUEST 



141 




ing a thing an illusion does not make 
it one. Science demands proof. 

“How many times have two, three or 
even four individuals in widely sepa- 
rated parts of the world worked out 
the same discoveries? I recall, scarcely 
six weeks ago, how I mailed a scientific 
paper to a periodical. A few days later 
I received a copy of the magazine car- 
rying a paper by another scientist bear- 
ing the same title as the one I had 
written. 



“The article was by a man I knew 
only by reputation. His treatise must 
have been on the presses while mine 
was in the mail. Such examples are 
abundant. They indicate that subcon- 
scious minds constantly are inducting 
telepathic messages, but only a small 
part of these seep through to our con- 
sciousness in recognizable form.” 
“How do you propose to prove your 
theory?” inquired Vance. 

The professor pointed to a small 



142 



ASTOUNDING STORIES 



cabinet in one corner of the room. It 
looked like a small model radio. In- 
side the cabinet, Professor Walleck dis- 
closed rows of vacuum tubes in an ul- 
trashort wave hook-up. One of the con- 
spicuous features of the apparatus was 
the presence of a crystal, used on early 
radio sets, but long since abandoned in 
favor of the vacuum tube. 

“This,” declared Professor Walleck, 
proudly, “is my thought interceptor.” 

IN A FARAWAY WORLD Brulf 
entered the dank passage leading from 
the bleak surface of his planet. A mov- 
ing conveyor swept him swiftly through 
smelly corridors, lighted with a soft 
phosphorescent glow. Twice the crea- 
ture changed from one belted conveyor 
to another. 

Brulf had been away fifteen years 
in Earth time, yet not a thing he saw 
had been changed. Nor had Brulf ex- 
pected a change. The inhabitants of his 
planet, Pluto, huddled as they were in 
the core of their world, had nothing 
further to look forward to in develop- 
ing their present home. 

Stepping from the last conveyor, 
Brulf moved in a circular, rolling gait 
on his three tripodlike legs as he walked 
toward the fanlike door of the palace 
of the victyl, Sigov, the dictator of the 
remnants of the dying planet. 

Brulf had a slender, cylindrical torso, 
rigid as a pillar of stone, connected with 
a globular head, which was covered, not 
with hair, but with a spongy, external 
brain, where the head joined the torso 
grew a dozen tentacles, specialized for 
sight, sound, speech, smell, touch, fight- 
ing and telepathy. 

Touching a button with one of the 
tentacles, Brulf watched the door fold 
aside. He rolled into a musty cavern. 
Overhead the walls shot upward toward 
a huge dome, covered with phosphores- 
cent material which cast an eerie glow 
over the chamber. 

Along the sides of the room stood 



rows of creatures like Brulf. They 
stood motionless as the rocks around 
them, save for their tentacles, which 
swayed nervously. The whistle of their 
voices quieted at Brulf’s entrance. 

Sigov, a majestic creature on a high 
dias in the center of the chamber, was 
not different from the others, save that 
his head was larger. 

“I have returned, beloved victyl!” 
Brulf intoned in his whistling buzz. He 
raised his tentacles and spread them in 
salute. 

The nervous swaying of tentacles in 
the cavern stopped. The auditory ten- 
tacles were held forward and the 
telepathic ones looped about the brain- 
covered heads. Brulf felt a flood of 
telepathic questions: “Is it hope — or 

doom ?” 

“For many s emesti I have wandered 
through space in the cruiser,” Brulf be- 
gan. “I followed your orders, sire, 
visiting each planet nearer the Sun than 
ours. I visited even some of the larger 
satellites.” 

“Did you find life?” asked Victyl 
Sigov. 

“In a sense, I found life on nearly 
all, but resembling our own intelligent 
forms I found only two parallels. On 
five of the eight planets and on all of 
the satellites, conditions were such that 
our race could not hope to survive. 

“Neptune and Uranus were too bleak ; 
Saturn, too gaseous ; Jupiter, too large ; 
Mercury, too hot. Mars is habitable, 
but it lacks water, necessitating a change 
in our mode of life. Venus and the 
Earth alone are suitable for our race.” 

“What of Venus?” inquired Sigov, 
anxiously. 

“It is the least preferable of the two 
remaining planets. It does not turn on 
its axis. It is uncomfortably warm and 
its humidity is high. Nevertheless it has 
conditions suitable for our race.” 

“And the Earth?” 

“It is ideal. Its climate is uneven 
due to a tipping of its axis, but it has 



THE PSYCHO POWER CONQUEST 



143 



pleasant conditions in most parts of its 
land surface that are even more suited 
to ourselves than Pluto was billions of 
quasisemesti ago. There are plentiful 
water and luxurious vegetation on its 
surface.” 

‘‘The life there, what is it like?” 

“It has a highly intelligent form of 
life, chief ! Its creatures, called men, 
are different from ourselves, but they 
follow our own principle of subsistence. 
The creatures are slightly less civilized, 
due to later development, but they have 
created vast works. 

Among the Earth men are ingenious 
engineers and scientists. The Earth 
men have developed powerful engines 
of destruction, far surpassing our own, 
although lacking in subtlety. We can 
easily overcome them with strategy, but 
he caipiot expect to win by force alone.” 

Victyl Sigov raised his tentacles to 
his brain surface. Brulf and his fellow 
creatures understood that the ruler was 
thinking. As one, they raised their 
swaying ligaments in unison to aid. 
They sent thought currents pounding on 
the brain of the victyl to help in solving 
the problem. 

It had been this mass brainwork of 
the mightiest thinkers of Pluto that 
had struggled with and solved the prob- 
lem of meeting the dying years of the 
planet. 

“As the last embers of Pluto’s inner 
heat burned low, they worked out a vast 
underground living program. Now, 
even that method of living was insuffi- 
cient to keep alive the inhabitants. The 
artificial heat of the inner city was dy- 
ing. In a few more quasisemesti, each 
one representing more than three hun- 
dred Earth years, the planet would be 
cold, dead and lifeless. 

During the last quasisemesti, huge 
transports had been built to traverse 
space. The population was scientifically 
reduced to a mere ten thousand who 
were to carry the seed of Pluto’s life 
to a new world. 



Brulf was chosen for the scouting 
trip. He had acute perceptive powers, 
ingenuity and a vast knowledge. His 
return marked 'the final step in the 
preparations to leave the planet. 

Sigov had finished his meditation. 

“What are the failings of this race 
of Earth men, Brulf,” he asked. 

“They have many failings, supreme 
victyl. They are easy to fool ; they are 
selfish and savage; they have all of the 
shortcomings of an immature race.” 

“Are they susceptible to hypnotism 
and suggestion ?” 

“Aye! They are most easily influ- 
enced, although they have not yet solved 
the secret of telepathy. In fact, it was 
through unguarded telepathy that I was 
able to learn their language, their habits, 
their innermost thoughts, while my 
transport rested on the huge glacier of 
' the southern ice cap. It was unfor- 
tunate that I landed there, for no men 
live in that region. Had I stopped in 
another part of the world I might have 
captured some of these creatures and 
brought them back.” 

Sigov lifted his tentacles once more. 
This time it was not to think, but to 
broadcast an order. 

“Our weapon shall be hypnotism,” 
the victyl decided. 

FOR WEEKS and months Profes- 
sor Walleck and his assistant had 
worked upon their experiments with the 
small thought interceptor. 

“We have learned that the small 
amount of electrical energy produced in 
thought may be carried to another brain 
by induction,” the professor said at 
length. “We can detect this with the 
interceptor. But attempts to rebroad- 
cast this energy on a magnified scale are 
shameful failures. Something is lack- 
ing, either in the machine or our men- 
tal make-up.” 

“Are you positive you need the crys- 
tal in your set?” Vance asked. That 
shining piece of mineral bothered him. 



144 



ASTOUNDING STORIES 



It represented the archaic in modern 
surroundings. 

“Yes,” nodded the scientist. “This 
special piece of mineral, which I have 
dubbed hyperasestone, has a certain 
hypnotic effect. It brings the mind in 
tune with the machine. Let us try once 
more.” 

The professor stood in front of 
Vance, seated on a chair in front of 
the machine. Professor Walleck stroked 
his assistant’s forehead. Through train- 
ing, Vance found it easy to succumb to 
hypnotism. His eyelids fluttered, then 
closed in sleep. The scientist turned on 
the machine. 

“You will place your mind en rapport 
with the machine,” whispered the pro- 
fessor, “and tell what you feel and see.” 

For a moment Vance was silent. 
Then he spoke. 

“I see huge glaciers, high mountains. 
I feel intense cold. Three men are be- 
side me — one of them is Commander 
Eagleston, in charge of the American 
antarctic expedition. Now I feel a 
contagion of fear. Something is flying 
overhead. It is a huge disk-shaped ob- 
ject, spewing fire like a meteor. My 
companions clutch their alpine sticks, 
for we have no weapons. The meteor is 
settling slowly, too slowly on the ice. 
I feel a desire to run and a curiosity 
to stay. I am standing stifl with Com- 
mander Eagleston. 

“Now a section of the disk is folding 
back. There are men inside — no they 
are not men, but creatures from another 
world. Something as large as a bushel 
basket, covered with spongy gray mat- 
ter is protruding.” 

“What is it?” whispered Professor 
Walleck excitedly. His machine was 
working for the first time, but was it 
a dream or fact? 

“I feel a surge of thoughts — thoughts 
that are strange and baffling; thoughts 
that give me complete understanding of 
things I have never known. They come 
from that spongy thing in the door — 



that thing, my Lord, it’s a creature’s 
head !” 

Vance’s voice was drawn into a ter- 
rified whisper. His face, even in hyp- 
notism, was contorted with fear. 

“I feel drawn toward the object !” 
Vance rose from his chair. His fin- 
gers relaxed as they dropped the imag- 
inary alpine stick. 

“What is happening now?” begged 
Professor Walleck. 

Vance suddenly toppled forward into 
the scientist’s arms. 

“Come out of it !” ordered the pro- 
fessor. “But remember what you 
saw.” 

Vance slowly opened his eyes. “I 
had a strange dream,” said the assist- 
ant. 

“There was something very genuine 
about it,” the professor shook his head. 
“I could almost feel it, too. What hap- 
pened, that caused you to swoon?” 

“Everything grew blank. It was as 
if I had been hypnotized while hypno- 
tized.” 

The following morning the newspa- 
pers of the land carried the story that 
Commander Eagleston of the antarctic 
expedition and three companions had 
disappeared while on a short exploring 
trip near Queen Maude’s range. The 
party had not reported by radio for 
more than twelve hours. 

BRULF and his dozen companions 
scrutinized the captives closely. He 
noted the dissimilarities between the 
Earth men and himself. 

Commander Eagleston and his three 
companions had not been conscious 
since they had been placed in the hyp- 
notic stupor at the time of their cap- 
ture. 

“What do you make of them, Brulf ?” 
asked Philig, second in command of 
the scouting ship. 

Brulf jerked his auditory tentacle, a 
sign of negation. “One of them,” he 
began pointing to Jimpson, a geologist, 

AST-9 



THE PSYCHO POWER CONQUEST 



145 



“recently has been in telepathic commu- 
nication with some one. The others 
do not even suspect such a thing as 
telepathy exists. I’m not sure that this 
one does, but he has been communicat- 
ing. I’m sure of that. Strange, I did 
not know the Earth men were aware 
of telepathy. We must control our 
thought messages hereafter.” 

“Can we use the men we have?” asked 
Sigov. 

“All are persons of importance, ap- 
parently. That is good. Our early 
operations depend on the use of leaders, 
hypnotized of course.” 

“Let us try the wiges,” suggested 
Philig. 

“Try them,” Brulf ordered. 

From the cargo storerooms, Philig 
brought four bright and shiny gems 
and placed one in the hand of each of 
the captives. Brulf whistled loudly to 
arouse the four hypnotized men through 
their senses of hearing. 

Without uttering a sound, Brulf men- 
tally directed the four , men to jump, 
walk, talk and do other simple tasks. 
The wiges, crystals made from a min- 
eral abundant on the inner core of 
the planet Piute, amplified the telepathic 
impulses without additional machinery. 

“The wiges work perfectly. This 
man Jimpson responds better than any 
of the others. We will use him as a 
key man in our plan.” 

“Good !” wheezed Philig with satis- 
faction. “While you set up headquar- 
ters here, I will return with the cruiser 
to Pluto to get the expedition under- 
way. Do you have sufficient wiges?” 
“There are one million in the hold,” 
replied Brulf. “In a world possessing 
communication facilities such as this 
that will be sufficient. I think, however, 
it might be a good plan to overcome the 
colony on this ice cap. There are fewer 
than one hundred, according to the in- 
formation we get from these. If we 
catch them sleeping we can take them 
without use of the wiges.” 

AST-10 



“One thing bothers me,” . mused 
Philig. “Why was Jimpson sending out 
telepathic signals? They were not clear 
and somewhat dissociated, but they were 
signals. Somewhere, I believe, is an 
Earth man who is fumbling with the 
secrets of telepathy.” 

“We must work swiftly,” observed 
Brulf. 

That night eighty-seven men of the 
antarctic expedition were lulled into 
a hypnotic sleep and a dozen strange 
monsters took over control of their 
colony. 

PROFESSOR WALLECK picked 
up the morning paper. 

“There is a great deal of space de- 
voted to the antarctic expedition to- 
day,” he said to his assistant. 

“That has been true since the false 
alarm over Eagleston’s disappearance a 
few days ago,” replied Vance. “Strange 
how a small breakdown in the radio 
could have made the whole world fear 
for his safety.” 

“Humph!” grunted the scientist. 
“Do you realize that no one heard a 
word from Antarctica for a full twenty- 
four hours?” 

“Radio trouble,” insisted Vance. 

“What about your bad dream during 
our telepathy experiment?” 

“Too much mince pie,” suggested the 
assistant. 

“Our thought interceptor hasn’t 
worked since.” 

“What I saw in the vision was too 
unreal to be true. Why, one would sus- 
pect the Earth was being invaded by 
a race from another world, if my dream 
was taken seriously.” 

Professor Walleck paced the floor, 
then returned to his chair. “How do 
you account for the fact that four men 
disappeared, including Commander 
Eagleston, and in your dream there 
were the same number in the party, in- 
cluding yourself?” 

“Coincidence 1” 



146 



ASTOUNDING STORIES 



“Things like that are happening daily 
and we try to explain them with a 
word,” sniffed Professor Walleck. “But 
let it be for a while. DM you read this 
paper?” 

“No,” replied Vance, taking the sheet 
offered by the scientist. 

“It says that during the exploring 
trip, just before the radio went bad, 
Dr. Jimpson, the noted geologist, dis- 
covered a new type of precious stone. 
He calls it a wige. Hum! Strange 
name.” 

“He describes it as being a hydro- 
carbon with the carbon atom in a differ- 
ent position from that of any other 
molecular substance known on Earth,” 
the scientist went on. “He says the 
chemical formula for wiges is H2C. 
Does that mean anything to you?” 

“The cold is affecting Dr. Jimpson’s 
mind. It is a nearly impossible com- 
bination. If oxygen were substituted 
for carbon, I’d say he had found a crys- 
tal of ice.” 

“Dr. Jimpson is a reputable scientist. 
He doesn’t make rash statements to get 
his name in the Sunday sections. I 
would like to obtain one of the wiges.” 
Professor Walleck glanced toward the 
laboratory wherein stood his thought in- 
terceptor. “It might work there.” 

Vance read through the article. “It 
says Dr. Jimpson and several compan- 
ions are returning home a few months 
ahead of the others with a cargo of 
wiges. Perhaps you can have him in 
for a few glasses of ale on condition 
he brings along some of his precious 
crystals.” 

PHILIG entered the victyl’s cavern 
and saluted his chief. 

“Everything. is ready on Earth,” he 
reported. “By the time we arrive the 
wiges will be distributed.” 

“You have established headquarters 
on Earth?” 

“We have, and outside of ninety-one 
captive humans no one on the planet 



suspects our presence,” Philig an- 
nounced proudly. “Our headquarters 
are on an uninhabited continent at the 
South Pole. While the weather there is 
mild, compared to that of our own 
world, it is too cold for the Earth men 
and we are safe from discovery. 

“Our captives are kept in a constant 
state of hypnotism and at our orders 
they keep in touch with other parts of 
the Earth so that no one will suspect 
what is going on. We have even started 
preliminary propaganda, to speed the 
distribution of wiges, by means of radio 
communication.” 

“What is Brulf’s plan?” asked the 
victyl. 

“The wiges act to hypnotic' waves in 
a manner similar to that of some min- 
erals to radio waves. When sufficient 
wiges are distributed throughout the 
Earth we will accomplish mass hypno- 
tism to bring about a hysteria of slum- 
ber. We will then take over key points 
on Earth and methodically subjugate the 
inhabitants. We can keep slaves for our 
needs and slay the remainder.” 

“Will the Earth men keep the wiges 
after they are distributed?” asked the 
victyl. 

“Brulf has reported to you that Earth 
men are selfish. As the wiges are dis- 
tributed a hypnotic suggestion will be 
made that the crystals are valuable keep- 
sakes. The wiges will never be dis- 
carded.” 

Sigov nodded in admiration of the 
plan evolved by Brulf and Philig. 

“We shall leave at once for the 
Earth,” announced Sigov. “Get ready !” 

PROFESSOR WALLECK’S spa- 
ghetti dinners were famous and Dr. 
Jimpson, fresh from the hardships of 
an antarctic expedition had enjoyed 
himself immensely. Now, as Dr. Jimp- 
son, Vance and the host sat about the 
laboratory alternately puffing and chew- 
ing cigars, the conversation drifted aim- 
lessly from one topic to another. 



THE PSYCHO POWER CONQUEST 



147 



Professor Walleck observed that it 
was not the same old Jimpson. The 
geologist seemed preoccupied. His 
thoughts were disconnected. 

“What are these wiges?” asked the 
host of Dr. Jimpson. “Tell me about 
them.” 

Jimpson dropped his preoccupied 
manner like a cloak. He leaned for- 
ward eagerly. 

“They are more precious than dia- 
monds,” he whispered. “I have one for 
you and one for Vance as a token of 
our friendship. There was only one 
small pocket in the territory we explored 
and we brought back all we could find.” 

Jimpson held out a crystal the size 
of a pea. Professor Walleck took it. 
Another was handed to Vance. At its 
touch, Vance felt a queer lulling sensa- 
tion. His nerves were soothed by its 
touch. 

Professor Walleck carried his crystal 
to the thought interceptor. 

“I should like to try an experiment, 
if you don’t mind,” he explained, re- 
placing the crystal in the machine with 
the wige. Jimpson did not seem to hear, 
he was talking eagerly about wiges to 
Vance. 

Professor Walleck switched on the 
thought interceptor. He stroked 
Vance’s forehead. The young man 
promptly went to sleep. 

“Tell me,” ordered the scientist, 
“what Dr. Jimpson is thinking.” 

Vance was silent for a moment. Then 
he spoke softly. “Our minds are not 
cn rapport,” he said. 

“What am I thinking?” asked Pro- 
fessor Walleck. 

“You are wondering if Dr. Jimpson 
has been hypnotized. You fear that he 
and other members of the antarctic ex- 
pedition have fallen into the power of 
creatures from another world. You be- 
lieve that is why I cannot read his tel- 
epathic thoughts.” 

Professor Walleck looked startled. 



“Vance,” he cried, “wake up. We have 
it perfectly!” 

Vance opened his eyes. He saw Pro- 
fessor Walleck’s flushed face. He saw 
Dr. Jimpson in front of him, still fa- 
natically discussing wiges. 

“Don’t you see, Vance? Your bad 
dream was true. Dr. Jimpson has been 
hypnotized.” 

Jimpson turned to Professor Walleck. 
“What were you saying?” he asked. 

Professor Walleck’s voice lowered it- 
self to a bare whisper. “I am the crea- 
ture who hypnotized you, Jimpson. You 
now are under my power.” 

Jimpson’s eyes closed. 

“You are not in this room. You are 
with Commander Eagleston exploring 
the foot of Queen Maude’s range six 
months ago. Now where are you?” 

“I am at the base of Queen Maude’s 
range,” came Jimpson’s voice, calmly. 

“Tell me what you see and what hap- 
pens.” 

For an hour and a half Professor 
Walleck and his assistant listened to the 
strangest tale they had ever heard. 
When Jimpson had finished, the pro- 
fessor spoke again. 

“You are no longer Dr. Jimpson of 
the antarctic expedition. You are my 
assistant, Vance Gibbons, and Vance is 
Dr. Jimpson.” 

A puzzled frown appeared on Jimp- 
son’s face. 

“Tell me who I am not,” said the 
geologist. 

“You are not Dr. Jimpson,” repeated 
Professor Walleck. 

“I am not Dr. Jimpson.” 

“When I awaken you, you will not 
be Dr. Jimpson, therefore you will not 
be under any hypnotic influence. You 
will be Vance Gibbons. Awaken, Vance 
Gibbons !” 

Dr. Jimpson opened his eyes. “I must 
have been sleeping, professor,” he said. 
“I hope you won’t fire me for loafing.” 

Vance held his sides to keep from 
laughing as he watched the geologist 



148 



ASTOUNDING STORIES 



rise and walk into the laboratory. Jimp- 
son’s imitation of Vance Gibbons was 
done to perfection. 

“For the present, Vance, I am going 
to have the services of two assistants,” 
the professor explained. “To avoid 
confusion, I think it will be advisable 
for you to take a trip to the Rocky 
Mountains for a month or two — until 
this invasion is disposed of.” 

“What are you going to do about the 
invasion?” Vance inquired anxiously. 

“For the present, I think I’ll play the 
stock market.” The' scientist smiled 
cryptically. “By the way, Vance, if you 
wish to sell your wige, I think I can 
get you a good price for it.” 

“For goodness’ sake, Steven, take the 

thing ” Vance stopped suddenly. 

An odd expression crossed his face. 
“But it is valuable,” he went on. “I 
shall not want to part with it.” 

He heard the professor’s deep- 
throated laugh. 

“Keep it then,” said Walleck. 

THE SPACE FLEET from Pluto 
landed atop Ross barrier. It had been 
a monotonous voyage and the travelers 
rolled out on the slippery ice to stretch 
their tentacles. Sigov, waving his liga- 
ments in satisfaction at safe arrival, 
met Brulf at the deserted Eagleston ex- 
pedition headquarters. 

“Is everything ready?” asked the 
victyl. 

“Everything, my . victyl,” replied 
Brulf with a wave of his sight tentacle. 
“The Earth men found here were sent 
back to civilization with a million wiges. 
I ordered them to travel in every land, 
giving crystals to people of importance, 
leaders of men.” 

“Are you sure one million wiges is 
enough ?” 

“My computations, sire, disclose 
three psychopower units sufficient to 
hypnotize a human. In cases of mob 
hysteria two and one half will do the 
trick. Our telepathic powers can 



throw five units into each crystal and 
the owner will receive the full force. 
This force, in turn, is generated in the 
crystal owner. He passes it on to those 
he is in contact with. 

“There will be some resistance, no 
doubt, and we calculate only two and 
one half psychopower will be passed on 
to nonpossessors of crystals. But our 
prisoners have been hypnotized to give 
the crystals to no one who cannot influ- 
ence at least one thousand persons. 

“We get the following: 5,000,000 
units^ given off by possessors of crys- 
tals ; 2,500 units given off and received 
by nonpossessors of crystals; total 
power 12,500,000,000 units. The popu- 
lation of the Earth is not more than 
4,000,000,000. We have enough power 
to hypnotize the Earth's people. Mass 
hysteria is cumulative, and, as the first 
million fall asleep, newspapers, radio 
and other forms of communication will 
carry on the hysteria until ninety per 
cent of the population is asleep.” * 

“Have you been in touch with the 
progress of events?” questioned Sigov. 

“Not for several weeks. I have rea- 
son to believe one Earth man, a certain 
Professor Walleck, is developing tel- 
epathic machinery. We can guard our 
telepathy to some extent, but observa- 
tion of the entire Earth means sure de- 
tection. There is no chance of our plans 
failing, however.” 

“We shall proceed at once with our 
conquest.” 

Sigov raised his tentacles. Ten thou- 
sand brain men of Pluto, assembled on 
the polar ice cap lifted theirs in unison, 
Sigov opened a small case, containing a 
large wige crystal. 

“Concentrate!” ordered Sigov. A 
whistling wail arose ordering Earth men 
to sleep. 

The power of thought waves made 

* Boris Sidis in his treatise, Psychology of 
Buggesion, gives a similar formula, which is 
somewhat modified here, showing the growth of 
mass hysteria in such cases as the South Sea 
bubble, Tuiipomania, the Crusades and to which 
might be added the chain-letter craze. 



THE PSYCHO POWER CONQUEST 



149 



themselves felt. Radio was influenced 
and power stations reported certain dis- 
turbances. Scientists — save the wiley 

Professor Walleck who was chuckling 
in his laboratory as he sent messages of 
warning to the State department at 
Washington, which was notifying other 
governments throughout the world — 
were puzzled. But the world did not 
sleep. Nowhere was there a suggestion 
of mass mania. The mind of man was 
impervious to telepathic suggestion. 

“Cease!” ordered Sigov. 

The tentacles lowered. The disci- 
plined army of other-world creatures 
stood motionless. Sigov gave another 
order. 

Without waiting to check the results, 
the Pluto men, confident of success, filed 
into the space cruisers. 

BRULF, now a hero among his fel- 
low creatures, rode in the flagship with 
the dictator, Sigov. The flagship was 
to conquer New York, the world’s larg- 
est city. Other ships were dispatched to 
Paris, Tokyo, Berlin, London, Cairo, 
Melbourne, Shanghai, Moscow, Rio de 
Janeiro, Lima, Mexico City, Quebec, 
Montreal and Los Angeles. 

From these key cities the conquest 
was to spread until the entire world 
would be under domination of the brain 
men. There would be a great slaughter 
before the Moon changed. 

Philig, sailing for London, soared 
rapidly toward his destination. Below 
the forests and deserts of the Earth 
spread out like a splotched painting. For 
several hours he burned through the 
stratosphere. Then he ordered the ship 
to descend toward the spires of the city. 

Scarcely a thousand feet above the 
city he saw activity below. He could 
not believe his eyes. The city should 
be asleep. Suddenly the ship trembled. 
He clutched frantically at the controls 
as a bomb burst near by. 

The ship sailed away from the city. 
Bombs followed. Each explosion was 



closer as the aircraft guns checked the 
range. 

The ship rolled with the force of the 
explosion as a high explosive shell 
struck the cruiser amidship. Brulf had 
warned the brain men of the powerful 
engines of destruction on Earth. Philig 
heard a cracking as the ship broke in 
two like a match. The shrill whistling 
screams of terror of the brain men 
sounded about him. 

Then the ship crashed to the ground. 

Near Rome another ship landed. But 
instead of finding mankind asleep, they 
were greeted by an army. Machine 
guns mowed down the Earth’s invaders, 
leaving them dead on the field of battle. 

Similar occurrences were happening 
everywhere, as Sigov and Brulf flew to- 
ward New York. 

Beyond the harbor drifted two battle- 
ships. The space cruiser drew closer. 
A long cannon spouted flame and thun- 
der. A shell struck the ship with ter- 
rific force. As the smoke cleared away 
bits of metal splashed like rain into the 
ocean. Not a trace of the ship was left. 

THE WORLD settled down to its 
routine of murders, wars, business, sun- 
rises and sunsets after that. The at- 
tempted invasion was soon forgotten by 
every one, save a small group of sci- 
entists who twirled forks in snarls of 
spaghetti at another of Professor Wal- 
leck’s famous dinners. 

The group settled back with indi- 
vidual, well-fed looks at the conclusion 
of the meal. Dr. Jimpson, the toast- 
master, arose. 

“I think Steven owes us an explana- 
tion of how he saved the world,” Dr. 
Jimpson said. “I also would like to 
know how I got the crazy idea for sev- 
eral months that I was Vance Gibbons, 
his assistant.” 

Beaming, Professor Walleck stood 
and fumbled with the silverware. He 
was not above basking in admiration. 



150 



ASTOUNDING STORIES 



in fact, he enjoyed it a little too well, 
but he felt bashful. 

“It was not wholly through my ef- 
forts,” he said with a feeble attempt at 
modesty. “I am referring to martyrs 
who sleep as a result of the invasion.” 
He paused while a murmur ran around 
the table. “I know you thought the in- 
vaders were repelled without casual- 
ties,” he went on smilingly. “But un- 
fortunately we have a few. 

“You recall the methods used by the 
men from Pluto; how wiges were dis- 
tributed to bring about a mass hysteria 
of slumber. My assistant Vance Gibbons 
gave me a warning of their arrival dur- 
ing an early experiment with telepathy. 
As luck would have it, his mind became 
attuned with Dr. Jimpson’s at the min- 
ute they arrived and placed Commander 
Eagleston’s party in their power. 

“I suspected hypnosis as the invad- 
ers’ weapon and when Dr. Jimpson re- 
turned from the South Pole I took 
special precautions to avoid receiving 
suggestions from him. As you know it 
is difficult, nearly impossible to hyp- 
notize an unwilling patient. I became 
more than unwilling — I was stubborn. 
He could not catch me off guard. 

“Vance, however, succumbed and I 
watched the effects. I saw it was the 
object of the invaders that each recipi- 
ent of the wige should keep it fn his pos- 
session. I manipulated Dr. Jimpson 
from their control by suggesting he was 
not Dr. Jimpson and therefore not un- 
der control of the invaders. I con- 
fiscated his stock of wiges and mailed 
samples to a score or so wastrel sons 
of millionaires. 

“I picked them from the social reg- 
ister as the most worthless of the people 
in our land, and consequently the most 
easily spared. I told each how these 
simple crystals were bound to become 
valuable as precious gems and that it 
would be a good idea to comer the 
market.” 



Professor paused for the laughter to 
die out. 

“I then obtained a gentleman’s agree- 
ment from all newspapers, radio stations 
and other communicating agencies 
throughout the world to hold up new* 
of a slumber epidemic for at least 
twenty-four hours after the first re- 
ports were received. I notified foreign 
governments of the invasion and had 
traps set to catch the invaders. 

“Meanwhile the young millionaires 
were becoming maniacal over wiges. 
They organized expeditions. Just as the 
wealth of the world is centered in a few 
hands, the wiges became centered in 
still fewer hands, since the desire for 
them was greater. Only a few wiges 
were outstanding at the time of the at- 
tack. Even Vance, my assistant, sur- 
rendered his. 

“With the wiges concentrated in a 
score of hands their power was greatly 
reduced. The effectiveness of the .plan 
depended on wide distribution and quick 
communication of the hysteria. With 
radio and newspapers suppressed, the 
mania stood still.” * 

“The wige millionaires were isolated 
by their own choosing. They were pro- 
tecting their hoards in miserly fashion. 
As a result only about 1,000 persons 
fell asleep at the suggestion of the men 
of Pluto. We can spare most of them. 
They will sleep for many years and 
when they awaken they will be older 
and wiser, thus more valuable to the 
world. In studying out the weaknesses 
of mankind and selecting a weapon to 
conquer man, the men of the Pluto over- 
looked one thing ” 

“And that was?” Vance looked to 
his superior. 

“Greed.” Professor Walleck chuckled. 



* Under the formula given before the power 
of the wiges, when centered in twenty hands in. 
stead of 1,000,000 would be 250,000 jpsycliopower 
units, even If communication facilities were un- 
hindered. This would hypnotize only about 
30,000 persons. Professor Walleck's figure is 
under that. 




Can't Science Fiction be a Combination 
of Both? 

Dear Editor : 

Please put this brief message in Brass Tacks. 
The best type of science-fiction story is the in- 
terplanetary tale. To all authors who write 
stories of other worlds, I want to give this very 
important advice : before writing any more 
arns, read Through Space and Time , by Sir 
ames Jeans. Build your tales around facts — 
not dreams. Remember : one logical convincing 
story is worth more than a million fantasies. 
Follow this suggestion, and perhaps science- 
fiction will become something more than just a 
joke. — I. M. Wright, Boston, Massachusetts. 



We Try to Hit a Medium! 

Dear Editor : 

If the law of something or other prohibits 
changing of the amount of matter in the world, 
then every time a person travels into time, the 
amount of matter in that person is subtracted 
from say 11)35 and changed, or added to. say 
1957, thus violating the law which prohibits 
changing the amount of matter in the universe, 
or rather in existence. I claim your magazine 
is a science-fiction magazine, and that you ought 
to have, as far as possible, science stories in 
your magazine — accurate science. 

As far as I have gone, the November issue is 
just about perfect. It must be Weinbaum. 
After reading the first part of Blue Magic I 
know why the readers have been calling for 
Difljn. — Tom Jackson, 5155 Wornall Road, Kan- 
sas City, Missouri. 



Generally Speaking! 

Dear Editor : 

Impressions of the December issue : 

Cover : Practically same colors as last 

month. Figure all out of proportion. 

Davey Jones’ Ambassador : The first science- 

fiction story I read, back in 1929, was about 
subsea creatures. The only difference between 



that and this story is that in this one they 
do not almost conquer the world. 

Nova Solis: Nice title. If the Sun ever did 

become a nova, perhaps Pluto would be left as 
an incandescent mass. The explosion would 
surely be more swift and violent than de- 
scribed. 

The Green Doom: When we ask for stories 

ns in the good old days we don’t want to go 
back quite as far as this. 

The Mad Moon: Amusing. 

Human Machines: Is this intended to bring 

some new information to us? Same goes for 
this ns for The Green Doom. 

The Fourth-Dimensional Demonstrator: Scien- 
tifically impossible, but quite hilarious. I sympa- 
thize with the fellow who got tangled up in 
the tesseract. I once made one myself. 

Avalanche: A fair imitation of John W. 

Campbell. 

Forbidden Light: Page 121, line 41 : “He 

damned the north end.” Page 38 : “That’s 

the Milky Way Galaxy.” The author ought to 
learn some astronomical nomenclature. 

Same page : “I thought the sun was the 

hottest body.” Some scientist. Also some 
scientists in that story, not giving their dis- 
coveries to other scientists. Altogether an ex- 
tremely mediocre story. 

I notice that John Russell Fearn has made 
himself ridiculous by apologizing for his lack 
of science. What right does he have to say 
what kind of stories he prefers? He only writes 
them. We are the readers who pay for the 
privilege of reading the stories, and if he doesn't 
write the way we want him to, let him try 
and sell a story. As to that, the editor is 
just as much at fault for accepting it. 

It comes to my mind at this time that there 
ought to be some kind of distinction between 
stories which have real scientific value and those 
which are just fantastic adventure tales. The 
term “fantasy” is sometimes used but this 
seems to denote more of the weird. What 
would one call n story like The Mad Moon, 
which has very little science in it, yet is more 
than an adventure story? Stories such as The 
Blue Infinity I like to call “scientihooey” stories, 
but that term would not apply to The Mad 
Moon. — Milton A. Rothman, 2113 N. Franklin 
Street, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. 



152 



ASTOUNDING STORIES 



Too Many T. V.’sJ 

Dear Editor : 

I have read Astounding Stories since its re- 
birth under the banner of Street & Smith. I 
have also seen its coming to life under skilful 
guidance, and I can’t begin to express my ap- 
preciation of your work and the work of your 
authors and artists. 

It isn’t always the stories and the sketches 
that accompany them, but it is the spirit of 
the magazine itself and the executive work of 
one individual that makes a magazine a success. 
One can’t say that the other science-fiction 
magazines publish poor stories, but there are 
other things wrong. 

After reading the December issue I have 
come to one conclusion that I am sure would 
improve Astounding Stories. It really does not 
need much improvement, but why not make it 
perfect? The general run of stories have good 
plots and are well written ; I have no objection 
in that direction. But every story that you 
have published is of the thought-variant type, 
every story is different — too different. 

Now, I think you should include in each 
issue a more conservative story of the adven- 
ture type so that there would be more of a 
balance in the issue in general. This balance 
is what the sctence-fictionists call “the good 
old days” but haven’t quite been able to put 
their finger on it. With this balance we could 
more fully appreciate the new thought-variant 
stories. 

I am sincerely sorry to hear that Dold will 
not be able to be with us for some time, but 
maybe the rest will refresh nis imagination. 

I hope to see another story by Don Stuart 
in your pages. I am convinced that his stories 
Twilight and Night are two of the very best 
science-fiction stories that I have ever read. 
He completely captured an air of deep melan- 
choly in those stories that makes them .classics. 
To write another sequel to them would spoil 
their weird charm. 

Stanley Weinbaura’s The Mad Moon demands 
a sequel dwelling on the former civilization of 
the “loonies.” If written well, it would have 
it all over The Mad Moon, which, I think, is 
not quite up to the Weinbaum standard. — 
Oeorge Harman, 1432 Elmdale Avenue, Chicago, 
Illinois. 



Ten Best of the Year! 

Dear Editor : 

Since it is the custom of the critics to pick 
the ten best novels of the year, at about this 
time. I’ve decided to pick what I consider the 
ten best stories published in Astounding during 
the past year. 

Leading the pack, ns the best story of the 
year, was that masterfully written Twelve 
Fighty-Seven, by John Taine. Taine’s charac- 
ters are much more believable than either 
Smith’s or Campbell’s. His heroes are not 
supermen who can do no wrong, but are human 
beings who make mistakes just like the rest 
of us do. I hope Taine is good for one serial 
a year. 

Night, by Don A. Stuart, takes second place. 
This story might aptly be called a symphony 
in words, so beautifully is it constructed. As 
a stylist, Stuart is unequaled in science -fiction 
to-day. 

In third place, we find Star Ship Invincible, 
by Frank K. Kelly. It is a wonderfully written 
story of conflicting emotions. Kelly is espe- 
cially good at this type of story. Isn’t he 
about due for another? 

Alas! All Thinking! by Harry Bates, ranks 
next. Although the ending is depressing, it 
suited the mood of the story perfectly. 

Next we find Greater Glories, by C. L. Moore. 
Miss Moore creates an atmosphere in her stories 
which grips the reader until the end. Fantasy 
of this high type is not out of place in Astound- 
ing. but none by Clark Ashton Smith, please. 

The Son of Old Faithful, by Raymond Z. 
Gallun, ranks next This was an excellent de- 



scription of the reactions people of different 
worlds might be expected to undergo when they 
meet for the first time. 

The Far Way, by David R. Daniels, was a 
big story in a few words. It is seldom that a 
story this short can be called great. 

Parasite Planet, by Stanley G. Weinbaum, 
was the best adventure-type story of the past 
year. Weinbaum is particularly good at writing 
this type of story. 

Proxima Centauri, by Murray Leinster, was 
an excellent character-adventure story. Murray 
is about due for another novelette, isn’t he? 

Last, but not least, The Phantom Dictator, 
by Wallace West. This was a different story, 
both as to plot and ending. 

There were many other excellent stories but 
these ten were, in my opinion, outstanding. If 
you can keep the magazine as well-balanced as 
it is at present it should satisfy both the 
adventure and the science seekers. I still have 
hopes for a quarterly. — Richard H. Jamison, 
5141 Dresden Avenue, St. Louis, Missouri. 



A Letter to the Art Editor 

Dear Mr. Lawler: 

This note should have been written you at 
least tw’o weeks ago and would have been ex-* 
cept for a series of unforeseen occurrences over 
which I had no control and which placed me in 
a position where I was unable to make definite 
plans for the future. At three separate times 
I’ve been on the point of returning to New York 
and each time had to give up the idea. 

Really, the most pressing reason for my stay- 
ing on here for some time longer is that my 
father has come to depend on me almost en- 
tirely and I fear my leaving him at a time like 
this might break him up badly and possibly re- 
sult fatally, as his heart isn’t any too strong. 

When I left New York, I fully expected to be 
back and at work by this time, but these un- 
foreseen circumstances which have developed 
make my eventual return indefinite. When I 
do get back, I’ll just have to hope for the best 
and pick up whatever work there is to do. 

On looking over the last issue of Astounding 
(December) I was glad to see that you have 
secured good men to do the work. The illus- 
trating of the magazine has worried me con- 
stantly while here and somehow I’ve felt guilty 
of leaving you in a hole. It’s a real relief to 
know that this was not the case. 

Before closing I want to thank you a great 
deal for the work you have given me as well as 
for your kindness and the patience you have 
shown when things didn’t go as smoothly as 
they should have. Perhaps, when this unavoid- 
able situation here is straightened out, you may 
be able to use me again. I sincerely hope so. 

And now, let me wish you, the magazine, and 
every one connected with it the best of good 
fortune for the future. Once more — thank 
you! Very sincerely, W. Elliott Dold, Jr. 



Was It That Bad? 

Dear Editor : 

Somehow the December Astounding didn’t 
have much appeal for me. Davey Jones’ Am- 
bassador and The Mad Moon are two stories 
that I did enjoy, however. Murray Leinster 
slipped this time with a rather old plot, not 
written up differently enough to overlook its 
age. The other stories were less than the aver- 
age on the most part. Just an off month, I 
suppose. 

Not only that, but you have to give us that 
bad news about Dold — one of the best illustra- 
tors of science-fiction — and a year is an awfully 
long time. Well, let’s hope it’s sooner than a 
year. I’m certainly glad that Wesso is coming 
back. He should have dono it sooner. 



BRASS TACKS 



153 



The other artists used in the December issue 
aren’t so good. In fact, some of them are ter- 
rible. Please add Frank R. Paul to your staff 
of artists. I’m sure that you could get him to 
do some of the interior work. I didn’t care so 
much for Brown’s cover this time, or that hor- 
rible cut for the story titles. The twenty-cent 
sign could be made smaller and stuck in the 
upper left-hand corner. 

Astounding Stories starts its seventh year 
with the January issue. Congratulations! — Jack 
Darrow, 4224 N. Sawyer Ave., Chicago, Illinois. 



Opinions Are Important! 

Dear Editor : 

An issue or two ago, you requested criticism 
on Astounding Stories. I have noticed several 
things about the magazine but have refrained 
from mentioning them because the magazine has 
slowly and steadily improved since its revival. 

My chief adverse criticism is concerning the 
readers’ corner. Brass Tacks. Puerile, insipid, 
and thoughtless letters should be left out. They 
do not even give an insight into the readers’ 
reactions to the various stories. They merely 
take up space and disgust the more serious 
readers. 

About the science in the stories : it should 
be of two types : 

1. The known and logical science of our civ- 
ilization. 

2. Imaginary developments on our own 
sciences with a few excursions into fields that 
are seemingly forbidden. 

I am strongly against the use of religious or 
metaphysical ideas in stories. They have no 
place in any rational world. I refer particu- 
larly to The Einstein Express. 

Forbidden Light was only C Class. The ideas 
were not entirely new. It was primarily an 
adventure story. Davey Jones ’ Ambassador was 
by far the best story of the issue. It had the 
proper balance between science and fiction. The 
Mad Moon was an interesting adventure story. 
Nova Solis is old stuff with very little that is 
interesting or ne\y. Human Machines is a little 
better. The problem of the insurgent against 
a change in life habits is always interesting. 
The Fourth-Dimensional Demonstrator added 
the right amount of humor to the magazine. 
Avalanche tried to be dramatic but failed. 

Blue Magic is another of the extremely in- 
teresting stories by Diffin — pure adventure but 
enthralling. Although a scientist, my chief 
hobby is adventurous science-fiction. I noticed 
no thought-variant story in this issue. They 
are usually the most interesting. 

In closing, I may say that I eagerly await 
the appearance of Astounding each month. For- 
get all the insane suggestions about bindings, 
smooth edges, slick paper, and concentrate on 
getting good stories, that have new ideas and 
good adventure in them. 

You asked for criticism and this is a long 
letter as a result. — Thomas S. Gordner, P. O. 
Box 1924, Knoxville, Tennessee. 



The Regular Course — and Then Some! 

Dear Editor : 

There have been so many requests lately for 
Astounding to publish a reprint, a quarterly or 
go semimonthly that it would seem to me that 
it is time to do something about it. For my 
part, I am not so sure that it would do to put 
out two issues a month, but I do think that a 
reprint or quarterly would be very welcome to 
the readers of your magazine. In every science- 
fiction magazine, every month, there are numer- 
ous requests for .one or the other of these and I 
think the circulation you have built would be 
greatly increased by an addition of some sort. 

I feel, and several others readers have ex- 
pressed the same opinion, that one issue of As- 



tounding a month is not enough and that we 
need something to go with it. We have been 
eating of the regular course of our science- 
fiction dinner for so long that we would now 
like to have some dessert to go with the regular 
meal. How about a quarterly? 

I notice in your editorial for the November 
issue that you have a chance to get another 
article along the same lines as Lo ! If this is 
possible, by all means do it, for I like Lo 1 very 
much, and while I wouldn't like to see articles 
like this in every issue, yet one in the near 
future would be just the thing. 

I have been reading science-fiction for a 
long time, and as long as a story is well writ- 
ten and is science-fiction it doesn’t make any 
difference to me whether it has little or lots of 
science in it. I like the stories of Smith far 
better than those that have less science in them. 

On the other hand, I have read many stories 
which have had very little science but were 
much better than some that had half the laws 
and theories of my college physics books mixed 
up in their plots. I still think that Rebirth is 
the best science-fiction story I have ever read. 

By all means keep Brown on the cover illus- 
trations. The paintings on the covers of As- 
tounding are far better than those on any other 
science-fiction magazines. Brown manages to 
get enough color into his paintings without 
making them look unreal. Not only that, but 
his figures are more lifelike than those of the 
other magazines. I think that a sensible pic- 
ture will draw more attention than one that 
looks like a circus billboard. — James A. McCor- 
mick, Jr., 328 Graham St., Elkins, West Virginia. 



The “Demonstrator” Gets a Victim! 

Dear Editor : 

Forbidden Light was a little too hackneyed 
for my sensitive stomach, but, outside of that, 
the December issue is plenty smooth. Two 
stories, in particular, have stuck in my memory : 
Mad Moon and The Fourth- Dimensional Dem- 
onstrator. Mad Moon is a return to the level- 
headed Weinbaum style, after that rather fluffy 
romance of last month. 

The Fourth-Dimensional Demonstrator left me 
laughing, of course. In fifteen minutes, I 
calmed down enough to reread it. If I don’t 
watch out, I’ll be doing it again. More like 
this one, and you can boost your price to fifty 
cents and I won’t even squeak. 

I see by a letter from Mr. Holmes H. Welch 
that I’m crazy. I’ve suspected it for a long 
time, Mr. Welch. Thank you for fixing my 
convictions. By the way, how did you come to 
discover Astounding? You must read it occa- 
sionally, else how come your knowledge of Fearn, 
van Kainpen and all the rest? 

Can it be possible, Mr. Welch, that you are 
tarred with the same disintegrator, that you 
also, “are a mind so inferior that you seek 
recompense by slinking away to your super- 
sympathetic dream world’’? Are you, perhaps, 
speaking from experience? Have a good look at 
yourself. See if you are in a fit condition to 
cast the first stone at Astounding’s crowd of 
futile nonentities? 

Keep Weinbaum, Gallun, Vincent, Smith, 
Campbell and Taine at work, not to mention 
Jack Williamson and Nat Schachner, and you’ll 
keep this reader satisfied. — W. B. Hoskins, 65 
N. Pleasant St., Oberlin, Ohio. 



Fantastic Fiction Has Its Place! 

Dear Editor : 

For a long time I have intended to write 
expressing my gratification at the improved tone 
of Astounding Stories. I consider your maga- 
zine as the foremost standard bearer of this 
type of fiction. 

I am unable to understand why fantastic 
fiction is generally deuied literary recognition. 



154 



ASTOUNDING STORIES 



Since, by its very nature, fiction is imaginative, 
why should there be any limitation? Of course 
many stories of this type have been so poorly 
written as to discredit fantastic fiction in 
general. 

Far too many of them have no real plot at 
all but are mere elaborations of a single hack- 
neyed idea, such as the scientist making a mon- 
ster and losing control of it, or a mad scientist 
who seeks to rule the world, but is blown up, 
with all his fiendish equipment, in the last 
chapter. Fantasy alone, is not enough. Fan- 
tastic fiction like other forms of literature must 
have depth, atmosphere, convincing plots, and 
characterizations. 

I differ very strongly with Mr. Welch, who 
writes that science-fiction fans are largely luna- 
tics trying to escape into the dream world of 
imagination. I consider that the imagination 
is the greatest of man’s attributes, the one 
thing that separates man from animal. 

Nothing has been accomplished but what 
existed first in some man’s imagination. A 
properly developed and trained imagination in- 
spires boldness in thought and action, rather 
than weakness. 1 cannot find words to express 
my appreciation of Night. Hang on to Don 
Stuart ! Derelict also was glorious. 

The Lotus Eaters was splendid! What an 
imagination Weinbaum has ! All is brought out 
in such a matter-of-fact way. Give us more 
stories of the philosophical type. 

Forbidden Light was punk — only another 
wrecker-of-civilization story mounted on the 
plane of an adventure story. 

Nat Schachner’s stories are uniformly bad. 
At least, he is consistent in this. As a special 
favor please fire Frank Belknap Long. His 
stories are a little too tenuous and hazy, too 
many vague menaces and frightening phantoms 
never fully explained. 

More power to C. L. Moore ! Probably the 
reason some people do not read fantastic stories 
is that they are bound to make them think — 
that being a function as many shun as they 
would fhe presence of the evil one — conse- 
quently science-fiction is ruled out. How’s that 
for a theory? — Haskell Benton, Iowa Park, 
Texas. 



Objection Sustained! 

Dear Editor : 

Your editorial comments on helpful criticism 
have moved me to submit a few. Brown has 
turned out his third really fine cover. When 
the Cycle Met was the only really poor story in 
this issue. The fundamental theory was per- 
fectly correct, but that the time cycle should end 
and begin at the blank wall of oblivion, is fool- 
ish. Since it was the same cycle all through, 
how was it that the men named in the story 
had not existed before at the dawn of the world? 

Also, Polaris was not the polar star in those 
days ; the author completely forgot the preces- 
sion of the equinoxes. Furthermore, the life of 
any one planet is but a fraction of a second of 
eternity, and thus the cycle could not possibly 
return to the beginning of things in time to save 
one measly solar system. 

I know that there’s a lot to say no but I still 
want Hawk Carse and John Hanson stories. 
Since my last epistle, I’ve seen several more 
requests in Brass Tacks. At least, make an 
experiment. — Jim Blish, 131 Harrison St., East 
Orange, New Jersey. 



A New Suggestion! 

Dear Editor : 

After reading Brass Tacks for over two years, 
and after having one of my letters published, I 
just can’t help writing another. I would like to 
put in a word about the outside of Astounding 
Stories. On the end you have a little square 
that says “160 pages.” To my way of reason- 
ing that is merely a waste of space. We read- 
ers don’t care so much for the number of 



pages so long as the stories are good. Now in 
this little square, why not put the name of the 
best story or the name of a beginning serial? 
Then, when wo readers go to reread some of 
the stories, w*e can see which one has the one 
we want to read. 

A w r ord about the November issue. I don’t 
believe the issue was up to your standards at 
all. I don’t believe that red and black make a 
very good color combination. I mean the shade 
of the lied Peri’s space ship. Then these two 
colors, in direct contrast with white and yel- 
low, do not appeal to me. 

Now the stories. The best, to my way of 
thinking, was The Red Peri , I Am Not God, and 
the new serial Blue Magic. The rest were not 
up to standard. But all the issues can’t be 
perfect and most of them are. I remain a satis- 
fied science-fiction fan. — Randall O’Brien, 2124 
Rockingham Rd., Davenport, Iow r a. 



We Take It On All Sides! 

Dear Editor : 

Yes, I’m back, and I'm sorry I’ve got to slam 
you. It’s about as pleasant as having a tooth 
out, for I love my Astounding — but skip that. 

You, editor mine, are too obliging. A few 
months ago, the cry was “Give us more adven- 
ture, we’re tired of superscicnce. Back to those 
happy days !” So you complied and now look. 
You took us too literally ; don’t you yet know 
that the great big public is just a great big sap? 
It has to be spoon fed, doesn’t know what it 
does want. By the old cave-man fiction, we 
didn’t really mean the same old Stories. Yet 
that’s what you’re giving us — same old hack 
stuff! In one word — medieval! 

And there haven’t been new treatments ! Look 
at The Red Peri! A good story, nicely written, 
but not one new idea — not one! It wasn't 
worth the tradition Astounding Stories has been 
building since ’33. Shades of Colossus and Ir- 
relevant ! Not a thought-variant in months, 
with the possible exception of The Adaptive 
Ultimate 1 

Cut down on adventure and try to improve 
your short tales ! As for Schachner’s newest : 
Mr. Schachner, I am ashamed of you ! I don’t 
intend to be irreverent, but the title should 
have been I Am Not Good. And the Novem- 
ber cover, that mess of exhaust from the Red 
Peri’s jets looked as if the cover had smeared. 
Well, I forgive Brown on the principle that 
“the king can do no wrong,” as every one says 
he’s tops. Still, a cat can look at a king, and 
people who live in glass houses get all the 
breaks. — Sidney P.irchby, 38 Nightingale Ave., 
Higham’s Park, Essex, England. 



We Try for a Balance! 

Dear Editor : 

This afternoon I began with The Red Peri in 
the November issue, and needless to say, I’ve 
only stopped now that I’ve read through the 
whole magazine. Really, it’s a w r onderful issue 
— the w'hole of it — a result obtained by a very 
careful balancing of the different types of tales 
that make up science-fiction. And it’s a change, 
too, for the majority of the stories lean toward 
the adventure type. After so many thought- 
variant themes, with action decidedly in the 
background, the difference is certainly refreshing. 

Blue Magic brings something that has been 
absent for so long that I had forgotten that it 
existed. It sounds very much like “save the 
earth while rescuing the beautiful damsel” sort 
of plot, but with Diffin behind the guns, it’s 
enough to make me wish that Astounding lias 
already gone semimonthly so that I could read 
the next installment in two weeks. 

Blue Magic is, I think, the main reason I’m 
writing this letter, in spite of the fact that I 
began by mentioning Weinbaum. I’m not so 



BRASS TACKS 



155 



sure that too many stories in the vein of Blue 
Magic and The Red Peri would go over so well 
but I, at least, am awfully glad to see them in 
this issue. They make one think of the old 
days when science-fiction was all blood and 
thunder ; and after a couple of years of heroes 
going through their appointed tasks with very 
little red haze to obstruct their collective vision, 
it seems good — very good. 

The Adaptive Ultimate was a new idea. 
However, it seems to me that it would be in- 
teresting to read a story where the superper- 
son did get hold of the movement of things ; 
might people not have been better off if all of 
them had been given injections of the adaptive 
serum? I am very much pleased with this 
month’s issue. — David R. Daniels, Consolidated 
(Jte Co., Ignacio, California. 



Here's One Pleased! 

Dear Editor : 

I have just finished reading the November 
issue of Astounding and I have to sit down and 
write you a letter of commendation. I believe 
it is the best issue you have published so far. 

The Red Peri was excellent. I am, in a way 
sorry that this story calls for a sequel, because 
sequels are rarely as good as the original. 

Ships That Come Back was a good character 
study. I believe I would have liked it better 
had the mysterious force been explained a little. 

When the Cycle Met was, in my opinion the 
poorest story in the magazine. There is in the 
Einstein theory, as far as I can see, no support 
for the idea set forth in this story. If the 
solar system were suddenly to revert to a period 
a thousand years previous, why would the men 
and buildings not also revert? 

Blue Magic ! Man, oh, man! Am I glad to 
see Diffin back in the fold? He was always 
one of my favorite authors and after reading 
the first installment of this story, I do not think 
he will fail to hold his place in my esteem. And 
don’t let it be as long between this story and 
his next one as it was between this one and his 
last one. 

The Lichen From Eros was another of Mr. 
Long’s delightful stories. The author solved a 
difficult problem in a very ingenious manner, in 
conquering the seeming unconquerable. But he 
states in the beginning that adapted traits were 
permanent unless superseded by other adaptive 
traits. Then, at the end, when the operation 
was performed on Kyra, she remained beautiful 
until the gland was removed, then reverted to 
the original state. Should she not have re- 
tained whatever adaptive characteristics she pos- 
sessed at the moment of the operation? 

I was not greatly impressed by I Am Not 
God. After I had read about four pages of 
the second installment, I could have laid aside 
the magazine and written a conclusion just like 
Mr. Schachner’s. 

The cover was the best in many months. I 
am glad to see that the demand for twice-a- 
month issues has died down somewhat of late. 
I would rather see a quarterly or an annual, or 
both. 

Well, Mr. Editor, my original intention was 
to write you a letter of praise, but I am afraid 
my good intentions got lost by the wayside. 
However, in spite of all the faults which are 
getting fewer all the time, I still like As- 
tounding Stories better than any magazine I 
have seen, and if 1936 shows as much improve- 
ment as 1935 has, Astounding will be the most 
famous magazine in the world. — J. J. Johnston, 
Mowbray, Manitoba, Canada. 



Hints and Answers ! 

Dear Editor : 

The November issue was a marvel ! The Red 
Peri was a fine example of literature and The 
Adaptive Ultimate was refreshing in its selec- 



tion of adaptation for plot. I was disappointed 
when I saw that Blue Magic had three-toed 
monsters. I hope Charles Diffin overcomes that 
in the story, for monsters are a rehash and 
should be relegated to horror stories. 

I believe that, on tiie whole, seasoned science- 
fiction readers rejected The Blue Infinity and 
the new readers are the ones who accepted it. 
Am I right? 

Howard V. Brown is doing fine work on the 
cover. Those who call his work “glorified lolly- 
pop” must have a sweet tooth. If they’d think 
of space or the unknown when they looked at 
the cover instead of the candy shop, they would 
do better. 

I think a science editorial would be welcome, 
but don’t be afraid to delve deeply into the 
subject. A general discussion is not always 
satisfactory. — Dale Tarr, 908 Vine St., Cincin- 
nati, Ohio. 



Good and Bad! 

Dear Editor : 

It has been a long time since I have written, 
but I still can tell an excellent story when I see 
one. I am referring to The Adaptive Ultimate, 
by John Jessel. Either the author’s dSbut is 
extremely auspicious or it is another pseudonym 
for a top-notch author. The story contained 
two desired goals of a good science-fiction story : 
science and fiction. This combination has been 
achieved by very few science-fiction writers. 

To start at the cover, it was good and bad. 
I am afraid Brown let his imagination run away 
from him, for I could not see where that beacon- 
like globe on the top of the tetrahedron came in. 
Although The Red Peri was a good story, it 
could never measure up to Hawk Carse of the 
good old days. 

When reading Fruit of the Moon-Weed the 
beginning made me feel sick, for it was terrible, 
but the ending was so well inserted and unex- 
pected that it balanced, and the story turned 
out pretty good. 

Ships That Come Back was indeed reminiscent 
of the bygone days. It was well written and 
succeeded in its aim : to describe space travel- 
ing in the raw. The binding of magazine is 
O. K. with me. 

When the Cycle Met was fair. David H. Beau- 
mont is evidently a beginner, yet shows promise. 

Frank Belknap Long's The Lichen From Eros 
started out slowly — which is a bad way to start 
out — then gathered momentum and was excel- 
lent in spots, but the climax played itself out 
and the end was slow like the beginning. How- 
ever, I like Long's work. 

I Am Not God was like The Adaptive Ulti- 
mate — an excellent story. Nat Schacliner is the 
master of science-fiction. The story is a com- 
bination of good fiction and plausible science, 
plus good psychology. Schacliner is always 
welcome. 

Concerning the editorials : I think it would be 
good to have them, but their length should 
never exceed one page. The subject of discus- 
sion can vary from anything scientific to un- 
proven theories and much discussed hypothesis. 
Yours till Astounding is a semimonthly. — Ray- 
mond Peel Mariella, 5227 Chancellor St., Phila- 
delphia, Pennsylvania. 



A Veteran Approves! 

Dear Editor : 

I have been reading good old Astounding for 
the last five years. That rather makes me a 
veteran, doesn’t it? 

As a whole, I think you have done a good 
job. But, I did like Dr. Hanson’s stories and I 
don’t see why you don’t publish them again. 

In a new magazine, one always makes mis- 
takes. Now I like a little adventure or drama, 
to sort of keep up the spirits of the story. But 
why do you have to have such stories as Islands 
of the Sun, The Lady of the Moon, Blue Magic, 
Fruit of the Moon-Weea, Princess of Pallist 

I Am Not God was very interesting, and, even 



156 



ASTOUNDING STORIES 



though fiction, I think quite possible. Intra - 
Planetary was another interesting story, and 
was written surprisingly well. When the Cycle 
Met was an excellent short, in fact, too short ; 
it was a sequel to a previous story, I believe. 
The Red Peri wasn’t so bad, although 1 wouldn’t 
call it very much science-fiction. Twelve Eighty- 
seven conies to a conclusion with a bang. Please 
give us better short stories. 

I have studied science for two years at school, 
and couldn’t get enough of it. Your magazine is 
a young one and has already, as I perceive from 
your cover, the largest circulation or any science- 
fiction magazine. You want that to continue, so 
why not devote more time to a careful selection 
of short stories? Also how about less of the 
hero pulling his ray gun and killing hundreds 
of Venusians and escaping from some place that 
no one could ever possibly escape from? 

Give your fans plenty of sequels. Can’t you 
tell that they like them? — Samuel D. Chempreis, 
322 Pine St., Waterbury, Connecticut. 



We Try to Improve ! 

Dear Editor : 

That was a fine November issue you put out. 
I have only read the short stories so far, but 
they are certainly O. Iv. Why didn’t F. B. Long, 
Jr., make a novel or novelette out of The Lichen 
From Eros t And since when lias it been known 
as two asteroids instead of one? 

What has happened to your new interior 
artist? I think he knew his stuff. Dold isn’t 
so bad, but his drawings are dark. Marchioni is 
good. 

To Raymond Hood : You say the editor gave 

himself a good bit of self-praise. He is only tell- 
ing in his own words what the readers say. And 
what do you know of Williamson’s ability? His 
story The Galactic Circle was very good but did 
not, to my mind, compare with The Legion of 
Space. 

I think your magazine is improving steadily. 
Make all the improvements you can. I am not 
in favor of a semimonthly. — William E. Stocks, 
1107 Bingham Rd., Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. 



He Likes It — But ■ - 

Dear Editor : 

Thank you for presenting us with an all-star 
issue on the anniversary of Old Faithful, The 
Mightiest Machine, and The Irrelevant. This is 
one of the best issues that I have read for a 
long time. Here is my opinion of the Decem- 
ber issue : 

Forbidden Light: One of the best, but Mr. 

Montague does not explain how the Panchette 
family got the forbidden light, if all of it is ab- 
sorbed by the stratosphere. 

Davey Jones’ Ambassador: Really a master- 

piece. Instead of making his characters from 
different places inhuman monstrosities, which 
mean to conquer the world, he gifts them with 
enough reason to see both sides of every case. 
There is one mistake : How could the ovoid stand 
the decrease in pressure? 

The Mad Moon: Written in the best Wein- 

baum style. He is too generous with his atmos- 
phere, however. Several of his moons have not 
enough gravitation pull to hold an atmosphere. 

Nova Solis: An excellent short story. 

The Green Doom: Pretty good, but don’t you 

think the theme is hackneyed? 

The Fourth- Dimensional Demonstrator: A 

very good, humorous story. Let’s have more of 
them. 

Avalanche: Good. The theme is old. 

Van Houten : Don’t use that amateur-scientist 
stuff. There should be enough proved scientific 
theories to back up the fiction. 

Burhans : An excellent idea about rocket-ship 
models. 

Martin : I agree with you on Night. It was 

one of the best science-fiction stories I have ever 
read. 



Ellisson : Harl Vincent is good for many 

more stories. 

I am for the blood-and-thunder stories if they 
are backed up by science. After all, there are 
many kinds of fiction, but we want science- 
fiction. 

Please make Astounding a bimonthly. — Harold 
Kessler, 5220 12th Ave., Brooklyn, New York. 



Remember Hawk Carse? 

Dear Editor : 

In the November issue of Astounding, I found 
in the Table of Contents, the following sen- 
tences under the title of, The Red Peri: “You 
have approved of Weinbaum’s stories. He has 
gone forward in this one to a point reminiscent 

of You tell me!” Now, maybe I’m just/ a 

bit thickheaded, but I’ll be hanged if I can 
figure out the meaning of it. Perhaps you will 
explain ? 

In the March issue of 1034, we find a list of 
stories and authors that seem to stand out from 
all the rest, such as. Rebirth, Born of the Sun, 
The Time Impostor and many other good sto- 
ries. Maybe it’s me. I might be mistaken but it 
seems to me these stories are much different 
from the ones we have now. They seem to be 
better and newer, original, if you know what I 
mean. The ones we have now are original, to be 
sure, but they don’t have that fascinating, 
breath-taking newness about them. Are we run- 
ning out of stories like this? 

The information I asked for in the last 
month’s issue, was received with a hearty wel- 
come and for those who wish to know, the 
story Into the Hydrospere, was written by Neil 
R. Jones. Is there any chance of getting him? 

My letter seems to be composed of a bunch of 
questions, but if you will bear with me and 
print this letter in Brass Tacks so we can see 
what the views of other readers are, I will be 
very much obliged. — Ross Wilson, Jr., It. F. D. 2, 
Box 89 A. Chesterfield, Missouri. 



Well! Well! 

Dear Editor : 

At last It has happened ! The impossible has 
been accomplished ! We have at last seen a 
drawing which shows the planet Earth, not with 
the ever-present Western Hemisphere in the 
featured position but with Africa plainly vis- 
ible. How did this happen? Where were you, 
dear editor, when they slipped this bit of heresy 
into good old Astounding? 

In case you don't know what I am talking 
about, I shall elucidate : If you have good eye- 
sight, you will see on page 53 of the December, 
1935, issue of Astounding Stories, in the upper 
right-hand corner a little white patch showing 
between the mountains and right over the mid- 
dle “loonie’s” head, the planet Earth with the 
continent of Africa plainly visible. Also, if you 
look closely you will see parts of Europe and a 
tiny little bit of Asia. 

First : I want it understood that I do not 
ever expect to see this" letter in Brass Tacks. 
In fact, I do not even expect it to be read. 
What is more likely is that it will be thrown 
into the wastepaper basket after a prolonged 
acknowledgment has been made of its .receipt. 
I have grown up with the firm belief that vou 
write all of these letters yourself and that vou 
never print anything that you receive. ‘ So 
much for that. 

Tops, in my opinion, is The Mad Moon. In 
this I believe Weinbaum is better than ever be- 
fore. In this he has done away with one of his 
characteristics that is a source of constant an- 
noyance to me. He has made his heroine have 
a little bit of sense — not much, but a little. 
Which is more than I can say for his better- 
known ‘^Patricia.” If he would only give his 
feminine characters some good sense, he would 
be, to my way of thinking, one of your outstand- 
ing authors. He has a very vivid imagination, 
but with It he has the ability to make his sto- 



BRASS TACKS 



157 



ries seem realistic, despite the fantastic crea- 
tures he invents. He makes it seem absolutely 
possible that there might be a race of loonies 
or, to use the scientific words, Lunje Jovis Mag- 
nicapites, that there might be a parcat of a 
Blinker. 

This is a wonderful quality for an author to 
possess. Burroughs has it — so has Merritt — 
and so also has Weinbaum, and if it were not 
for the one little fault that he has, which I 
mentioned above, he w’ould be splendid, colossal, 
euperepic, and dozens of other things. 

Blue Magic got off to a dull start, but is 
picking up rapidly. Forbidden Light was a lit- 
tle slow at first but ended with a bang-up finish. 
Davey Jones’ Ambassador was good. Nova Solis 
was pretty good and so was The Green Doom. 
Human Machines and Avalanche weren’t so hot. 
Aside from that, the issue was O. .K. 

The Skylark stories are A 1. Let us have 
more of them by all means. Don Stuart is 
swell. I would like to see some more of his 
stories. 

I am looking forward to Smothered Seas. 
Both of these authors are favorites of mine. I 
am very sorry to hear about Elliott Dold. Yours 
for a bigger and better Astounding. — A. A. Mc- 
Namara, 604 S. St. Andrews Place, Los Angeles, 
California. 



Checking Up! 

Dear Editor : 

This is the first time I have ever written any 
magazine the first day it came from the news 
stands. May a young but experienced reader 
make an attempt at answering a few epistles 
which were printed in Brass Tacks of the De- 
cember Astounding? As the stories are all ex- 
cellent, there is no need of my writing the pros 
and cons which, undoubtedly, have all been said 
before. 

Van Houten : Your idea concerning science- 

fiction on the radio is a swell one. 

Rothman : You told me that Twelve Eighty- 

seven is science-fiction ; evidently you referred 
to my letter of October. I agree with you heart- 
ily ; Twelve Eighty-seven most certainly was 
science-fiction. But if you w T ill go over my let- 
ter a little more carefully, you will notice that 
I said that the aforementioned story is not the 
science-fiction type, meaning that it is not the 
sensational type that makes every science-fic- 
tionist heart beat faster. 

Welch : Our broad-minded editor printed an- 

other of your missiles which again insults the 
intelligence of us readers. True, science-fiction- 
ists are slightly insane if you call abnormal 
mentality, insanity. We do not have inferior 
minds. I have found that to be true through 
my correspondence with Douglas Blakely, Bob 
Cloud, Ramon Alvarez del-Ray, and others of a 
high mental caliber. How can you say such a 
thing after reading one of Ramon’s mighty epis- 
tles, or are they too far over your head? 

Plimsoll : I have never yet seen a white cor- 
puscle that looked- like the one C. R. Thomson 
drew for Intra-Planetary. If I ever do isolate a 
freak corpuscle, I will spend an hour or so over 
my microscope in preference to seeing the latest 
horror movie. 

Our magazine is a shining proof that hard 
work, discretion, and applied brains, can bring 
out perfection. You have tried hard to please 
us, editor, and your success has been greater 
than has been anticipated. — Willis Conover, Jr., 
280 Shepard Ave., Kenmore, New York. 



He Favors Jessel! 

Dear Editor : 

My primary reason for writing this letter is 
to compliment John Jessel for writing that su- 
perb story The Adaptive Ultimate. That story 
was a classic — much better than Campbell’s or 
the others. For originality, science and interest 
it was unsurpassable, and it was written by a 
newcomer, too. In my humble opinion, he al- 
ready ranks with the top-notch authors. 



I notice many readers asking for the return of 
Hawk Carse and John Hanson. Why not? I 
also agree with the bunch clamoring for Keller, 
Wesso and Paul. Wesso and Paul are really 
good. 

What happened to the semimonthly plan? I 
hope you do not publish any more blood stream 
stories. The first few w T ere passable, but now 
they are monotonous. 

Here are some suggestions to improve the ap- 
pearance of Astounding: 

1. Print the authors’ pictures. 

2. Smooth the edges of the magazine. 

3. Get Paul, Wesso, and Muller to illustrate. 

4. Do not be afraid to show how good you 
are ! — Robert A. Madle, 333 E. Belgrade St., 
Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. 



No Science, but “Skylark” Was Good! 

Dear Editor : 

Your editorial in the December issue contains 
an intriguing mixture of good and bad news. 
I was very sorry to hear about Dold's illness, 
and hope that he is back with us soon. How- 
ever, every cloud has a silver lining. The silver 
lining in this case being your announcement of 
Wesso’s return. This is the best news I’ve heard 
in a long time. In my estimation, Wesso was, 
and is, the greatest of science-fiction artists. 

It’s been a long time since I’ve read anything 
like the delightful nonsensical tale of The Mad 
Moon. Just how does Weinbaum set about the 
business of manufacturing one of bis plots? The 
screwy characters emanating from his bursting 
cranium belong in Baum’s Fantastic Land of 
Ozz. 

About the proper balance of science and ad- 
venture in your stories : My vote goes to the 

adventure. The wilder and woolier the stories, 
the better I like them. I must admit that I 
don’t know a thing about science, and all I get 
out of the really scientific ones is a pounding, 
screaming headache. However, I really enjoyed 
Smith’s last Skylark story, which did contain 
plenty of science. 

The fellow w r ho illustrated The Mad Moon — 
Thompson, I think. — has caught the spirit of 
the yarn perfectly. — C. E. McGonicle, 1019 Mid- 
dlesex St., Lowell, Massachusetts. 



A Joyful Return! 



Dear Editor : 

A constant reader of science-fiction returns 
home after three months’ absence to find the 
October, November and December issues of As- 
tounding waiting for him. 

First he picks up the October issue : “Well, 
that’s an interesting cover. Brown always did 
good work anyway. Let’s have a look at the 
contents page ! Schachner. Stuart. Daniels, 
Weinbaum, Ross, Gallun, Corbett, Kruse and 
Haggard ! What a line-up!” 

Then the November issue : “Knock me over 

with a feather ! What happened to Brown this 
month? That tan space ship looks terrible! 
Blue Magic by Diffin ! That is a treat. Wein- 
baum again in The Red Peri! Bring on his 
stories, editor ; they don’t bore me. Another 
Binder story ! More Haggard !” 

Now the December: “Well, this is better! 

Brown is at his best this time. It reminds me 
of the masterpiece on the May, 3935, cover. Keep 
your golden paint materials at work, Mr. Brown. 
What a Christmas present ! More Weinbaum, 
Haggard, Diffin. In other words I am satis- 
fied !” 

Let’s have more Leinster. Fearn and Wein- 
baum ! The Fourth-Dimensional Demonstrator, 
Blue Infinity and The Red Peri were all tickets 
to a delightful evening. And, by the way, did 
this fellow by the name of J. George Frederick 
drop off the map? Bring him back, editor, 

I can truly say that Astounding is getting 
better every month but like hundreds of other 
readers I have favorite authors whose stories do 



158 



ASTOUNDING STORIES 



not appear in your magazine. What about David 
Keller? Eshback, P, Schuyler Miller, Leslie F. 
Stone, and Henry Kostckos? 

I know that these authors have been asked 
for before, but if we keep begging, maybe some 
day you will bring them back, along with those 
twice-a-month issues. — John Chapman, 500 15th 
Ave. S. E., Minneapolis, Minnesota. 



How About a Sequel? 

Dear Editor : 

After having closed the cover on your Novem- 
ber issue of Astounding Stories, I realized the 
The Red Peri is about the best novel that you 
have published for some time. This letter is a 
request for a sequel to The Red Peri. The 
author advances a startling theory, which, al- 
though contrary to common belief, I think has 
reasonable foundations. His graphic method of 
portrayal only serves to make the story more 
enjoyable. 

Diffln’s new serial sounds like a corker, and 
after skimming over the second part of Blue 
Magic I am sure that this serial will be fully as 
good as Twelve Eighty-Seven. 

I hope that you will keep up the high caliber 
of your stories and here’s wishing for a sequel 
to The Red Peri. — Edward Alpert, Donald Brag- 
man, 402 South Crouse St., Syracuse, New York. 



Thank You! 

Dear Editor : 

I wish to compliment you on the December 
issue of Astounding Stories for its most excel- 
lent variety of stories. I believe Mr. Weinbaum’s 
The Mad Moon and the artist who illustrated it 
should be credited with the* best story and draw- 
ings in the issue. 

You have indeed progressed greatly since 
Street & Smith have taken over the magazine. 
I am sure that Mr. Dold will be missed by us 
all, but here’s wishing him a speedy recovery. 
An artist of his caliber is second to none. I 
have every copy of your magazine on file, back 
to the beginning, and loan them to my friends 
only under solemn promises to return them as 
quickly as possible. 

May we have Hawk Carse and Seaton and 
Crane and a few more of the scientific-adventure 
type? Here’s wishing you the best of luck, and 
never mind the staples or edges — it’s the inside, 
not the outside, that we readers are interested 
in. — Bayard L. Clark, Box 1228, Springfield, 
Massachusetts. 



How About This Suggestion? 

Dear Editor: 

Wow ! I’m taken back a bit by the December 
issue. Even if it’s doubtful that I’ll get into two 
consecutive issues of Astounding Stories, I want 
to tell you, editor, that you have done a good 
job. Every one of the stories w T as from good to 
excellent and the illustrations were all perfect. 
The cover illustration wasn’t so hot, but it’ll do. 

The excellent group of the collection of mas- 
terpieces in the magazine were The Mad Moon, 
Davey Jones' Ambassador, and Avalanche. Nova 
Solis jtist missed because the ending was kind 
of flat and toneless. 

The rest, yes, eyen Forbidden Light , were 
trailing because of various reasons. Forbidden 
Light, because of the weird-story aspect : Green 
Doom, because of an age-old plot ; The Fourth- 
Dimensional Demonstrator was interesting and 
different, but it seemed too trivial. Human 
Machines was worth about a dime a dozen, but 
it was well written — the only thing that saved 
it. 

But, gee ! From one extreme to another ! 
First we get too much science and kick. Then 
you give us not a thought-variant in the lot ! I 
don’t call that fair — even to us blood-and-thun- 
derers. 



The exclamation at the beginning of the let- 
ter was for the idea submitted by Charles Bur- 
hans about the models. I am also a model 
maker and I think the idea is a honey ! I’m 
getting sick of airplanes and I think that space 
ships and such is a very good substitute. These 
small plans have made a big hit in the air- 
story magazines, and I think it would give As- 
tounding the extra kick it needs to put it in the 
lead, permanent, once and for all ! 

Please discontinue your practice of telling the 
names of the coming stories. It takes away all 
the suspense of opening the cover to the Con- 
tents Page and eagerly scanning the new titbits 
of pleasure. Now all of that is gone, if you 
keep on with it. There is an alternative, you 
know ! 

And please tell Brown to remember that we 
don’t want impressions of scenes on the cover ; 
we want scenes ! — Raymond Van Houten, 26 
Seeley St., Paterson, New Jersey. 



From a Faithful Disciple! 

Dear Editor : 

I have avidly followed the fortunes of the old 
Astounding — saw her rise and fall and was very 
much pleased with the regenerated magazine. 
The thought-variant idea was good and produced 
some wonderful stories. As I say, I’ve had my 
finger on Astounding’s pulse for a long time in 
silence, but now I have a few bricks to hurl. 

I do not think your December issue was up to 
par. Brown’s animated gingerbread man on the 
cover was terrible, no less, and the novel that it 
depicted — the less said about that the better! 
It was a childish nightmare ! I like Charles 
Diffin, but think some one else must be writing 
Blue Magic. He is capable of something much 
better. 

For Weinbaum, I have nothing but praise ; his 
stories fairly sparkle, all of them ! He is your 
one author who realizes that too much detail 
will spoil a story as quickly as vagueness. His 
nomenclature is so matter-of-fact as to seem an 
actuality, and his breezy manner of bringing in 
the romantic is not at all sticky. 

Leinster’s satirical effort was fair, and with 
the possible exception of Gallun’s “fish story” 
the rest were all just mediocre. I will say the 
plots were all good — they’ve stood the test of 
time. Whatever has become of Cummings, Wan- 
drei. Starzl, and Schacliner? 

For us childish folk, couldn’t you try an oc- 
casional interplanetary? I would like to hear 
from the miss from Mansfield who was, or is, 
a neighbor of mine. Any one w T ho cares to take 
the initiative to write. I will be glad to write to. 
Looking forward to next month’s Brass Tacks. — 
R. W. Parr, U. S. S. Sandpiper, San Francisco, 
California. 



The Good and the Bad! 

Dear Editor : 

Herewith I formulate a dusty manuscript to 
grace the archives of your files. One from the 
misty intricacies of ray cerebrum. 

I just finished reading the December issue of 
your magazine, and was dissatisfied with only 
two of your stories. I’ll give a treatise on those 
first. Forbidden Light had too much “darling” 
and “dear” in it. Any supposedly cold, prac- 
tical scientist would not be what he is if he 
falls in love with a sob sister like the one here. 

There is not the slightest resemblance between 
the cover illustration and the inside picture illus- 
tration of the monster carrying that piece of ice. 
Also, it would seem slightly out of reason for 
the monster to be strapped to the top of the 
car that he so easily slung at the ice house. 

Davey Jones’ Ambassador brings out a new 
theory and the science of the story seems to be 
brought out well. I can say that this one came 
up to my expectations. 

The Mad Moon gives one the best description 
of life on a moon that I have read for a long 
time. I bet there were only a few that didn’t 



BRASS TACKS 



159 



like this one. For Nova Solis; at least the hu- 
mans had a chance for future life, however 
dreamy. The Green Doom, bears suspicious re- 
semblance to I Am Not God. That picture of a 
sea monster in Human Machines may have been 
a sailor once but I was absolutely unable to 
visualize him in that shape and form. 

Avalanche had full retribution for the wronged 
anyway. I never had a better laugh than that 
while reading The Fourth-Dimensional Demon- 
strator. This bit of comedy was entirely wel- 
come. Let’s have a Derelict sequel and a page 
of scientific facts. — Hudson Frazier Pritchard, 
P. O. Box 525, Princeton, West Virginia. 



We Miss Dold, Too ! 

Dear Editor : 

1 think that the announcement of the illness 
of that acme of illustrators, Elliott Dold, is the 
worst bit of news that has graced the pages of 
our “marvel mag” since the coming of Lol This 
superartist has some intangible quality which he 
lends to his masterpieces that is nothing short 
of perfection. 1, for one, shall miss him greatly. 

The stories in the December issue were good, 
but not any better than the ones in previous 
issues. The Fourth-Dimensional Demonstrator 
and The Mad Moon were the best. I surely wish 
Leinster was as prolific as Stanley G. Weinbaum. 

1 tried to save all the installments of Blue 
Magic until I have them all and could read them 
in a lump, but the temptation was too power- 
ful. After reading the first two installments, I 
am rather in doubt as to what 1 think of them. 
The best word that I can .conjure is "perplex- 
ing.” Anyway, it looks like a pretty good story, 
and I will wait for the concluding installment 
before I draw any conclusions. — Douglas Blakely, 
4510 Edina Boulevard, Minneapolis, Minnesota. 



Indefinable Something? 

Dear Editor : 

Somehow the December issue does not seem to 
satisfy. It lacks that indefinable something that 
characterized all of the former issues. The 
cover also displeased. The monster looked like 
King Kong and the two men looked like fuzzy- 
cheeked schoolboys who were playing hooky. 

However, there were a few stones that did 
please ; these were The Mad Moon, The Fourth- 
Dimensional Demonstrator, and Nova Solis. For- 
hidden Light did not have enough scientific ex- 
planation to suit me, although 1 don’t like too 
much of it. 

The controversy about too much science in 
the stories is proving interesting reading. My 
opinion is that you should have a few stories 
in each issue to satisfy those who are searching 
for blood and thunder. 

Now about the much-wanted quarterly again : 
it should have one full-length novel which ordi- 
narily ought to be a serial, one novelette and 
three or four shorts. I am sure that every one 
who reads the magazine would buy a quarterly. 
Please let us have a definite answer. — Lyman 
Martin, 65 Howe St., Marlboro, Massachusetts. 



Attack! 

Dear Editor : 

I am writing to you, the editor of a science- 
fiction publication. As the name implies, this 
corner in the bookshelf of literature is intended 
to be devoted to a presentation of imaginative 
or actual science combined, of course, with fic- 
tion. Every reader of science-fiction must have 
been amazed upon reading one of the tales in 
the December issue of Astounding Stories. One 
of the authors seemed to be ignorant of the 
meaning of this description. I refer to James 
Montague, author of Forbidden Light. 

Stories have been written whose plots are 
based on impossibilities. Stories have been 
written which contain miscalculations and de- 



fiances of the laws of science. However, the 
part of Mr. Montague’s story which caused me 
to write this letter was small indeed, but “in 
small things we are defeated.” 

I refer to the speech of Gidean at the top of 
page 124 : “The damned lightning starts from the 
ground, Stanton, and that isn’t natural, is it?” 
In this, he exposes definitely a fact which makes 
itself evident throughout the story, namely : 
that he knows very little of science or the sub- 
ject with which he deals. 

Mr. Montague apparently never learned one 
of the basic laws of electricity — that only nega- 
tive electric charges move. The fact that 
whether lightning moves up from the earth or 
down from the sky cannot be determined be- 
cause, to the naked eye, lightning appears simul- 
taneous as it would travel 15,500 miles before 
the eye could register even its existence. 

Though the initial error is a minor one, I con- 
sider it far greater than the deeply laid mis- 
takes which critics are always digging for, be- 
cause it openly, brazenly, almost in an empha- 
sized manner, show’s Mr. Montague’s ignorance. 
Every high-school boy knows that lightning 
strikes upward from negative earth to the posi- 
tive clouds. This exposure is as undisguised as 
it is irreparable. 

The handling of the rest of the plot, as is 
natural from one ignorant of science, is done 
very clumsily. None of the scientific points are 
fully explained probably because Mr. Montague’s 
limited knowledge wouldn’t allow a plausible 
explanation. 

The other stories in the magazine are above 
average. Blue Magic is promising ; it seems to 
be a particularly interesting tale. 

Human Machines has a very unsatisfactory 
and indefinite ending. — Robert L. Harder, Jr., 
225 East 4th St., Berwick, Pennsylvania. 



Another New Idea ! 

Dear Editor : 

I just got the December issue about two hours 
ago and it’s the best issue yet. The only thing 
I didn’t care for was the cover. As for the 
illustrations : Dold’s, Marchioni’s, and Howard 
V. Browm’s are very good. Flatos’ and Snaty’s 
are almost as good, but the ones that I liked the 
best were Thompson’s for The Mad Moon. 

I hear that Wesso is coming back : that’s 
swell. Too bad Dold is going to be gone for a 
year, but if Wesso can take his place for a while, 
I’ll be satisfied. I never expected about twenty 
pictures for one magazine in one issue. 

Some one said that the magazine won’t last 
them for a whole month, but I’ll tell you what I 
did. I got a ten-cent box of water colors, some 
blotters, and painted the pictures in some of 
my magazines. The colors have to be blotted 
right away to keep the pages from wrinkling. 
Thus you can get about ten hours more enjoy- 
ment out of Astounding each month, and also 
brighten up your magazines. How’s that for an 
idea? — Morris Dollens, 126 Twelfth Ave., North 
St. Paul, Minnesota. 



Re: “Fantasy Magazine V* 

Dear Editor : 

It is a well-known fact that science-fiction 
fans comprise the most enthusiastic group of 
readers in the entire magazine fiction field. In 
no other magazines can one find, for instance, 
such lengthy readers’ departments, where one 
is able to discuss the magazine and its stories 
or criticize scientific theories, expounding one’s 
own views. 

However, the readers’ departments are, of 
necessity, limited in their scope. To take care 
of this deficiency, science-fiction fan magazines 
have come into existence. At present there are 
a great number of them, but the one that is, 
I believe, generally recognized as the leader in 
the field is Fantasy Magazine. This is a small 
printed magazine that is sold through subscrip- 
tion only. 



160 



ASTOUNDING STORIES 



Among the features included in its contents 
for every issue are : a biography or interview 
with a prominent science-fiction author ; a gos- 
sip and news column giving outside and advance 
information concerning authors and stories ; a 
complete and authoritative column concerning 
science-fiction in the movies ; science-fiction 
news in foreign countries ; a service department 
giving complete information on rare science- 
fiction, scientific and scientifiction articles by 
well-known authors and fans ; occasional out- 
standing science-fiction stories and satires. 

Readers of Astounding Stories, you will be 
greatly interested in Fantasy Magazine. Why 
not give it a trial? For further information 
send your name and address to Julius Schwartz, 
255 East 188th St., New York City. 



More Adventure, Mystery, Romance! 

Dear Editor : 

Textbooks on chemistry, physics and astron- 
omy may be obtained from the neighborhood 
library, so please keep some of the said sciences 
out of our magazine. We readers read Astound- 
ing for the adventure, mystery, and romance 
contained in the stories, and not for a con- 
glomeration of equations and dry scientific fact. 
So please, give us more adventure and less 
science. 

Well, Mr. Weinbaum, let’s have the sequel to 
The Red Peri, whose way you paved so ex- 
cellently, with the ending of that marvelous 
story. 

I suppose the semimonthly question has been 
settled by this time so I shall not make further 
comment other than this : I hope Astounding 
remains a monthly. 

Before I forget, allow me to congratulate you, 
Mr. John Jessel, on the delightful tale, The 
Adaptive Ultimate. It’s truly a swell story, if 
you will forgive the colloquialism. 

I see that you are trying to get Wesso to 
illustrate for Astounding Stories. I sincerely 
hope that you will allow him to do at least 
one cover. Then, and then only, will Astound- 
ing Stories have a chance to reach the peak 
that the old Astounding Stories set. 

Of all the childish nonsense ! So Charles 
Burhans of Lakewood, Ohio, wants to carve 
little models of rocket ships, does he? Well, 
Charlie, conduct your carving elsewhere. 
Astounding Stories is a science-fiction magazine 
and not a publication for people who have noth- 
ing else to do but carve rocket ships. Plans 
of this sort may be found in other magazines, 
so please, Mr. Editor, don’t desecrate Astound- 
ing Stories with such childish nonsense as this. 

Now that I think of it, I have another point 
to bring out. What was so great or extraordi- 
nary about The Mightiest Machine — and several 
other of those so-called masterpieces? Also 
what is so wonderful about Brown’s cover 
illustrations? Why don’t you try Wesso? — Phil 
McKernan, 827 Greenwood Ave., San Mateo, 
California. 



No Complaints! 

Dear Editor : 

Here is a letter from an old reader of 
Astounding Stories. In fact, I bought the first 
issue of the first science-fiction magazine on a 
news stand. But this is my first letter to any 
magazine of the type. 

This is the reason : I saw a letter in Brass 

Tacks of the December issue from Robert Pratt 
of Cedarhurst, New York, asking that you start 
a science-fiction magazine with only one or two 
main characters. This type of magazine would 
give the author a chance to describe all the 
fine points in his story. It would not mean 
that one author would write every issue along 
as it was put together. 

I have wished for a magazine of this type 
ever since I bought my first and that must 
have been eight or nine years ago. I still like 
them. 



I haven’t anything to complain about. I’ve 
found that if I don't like a certain story I am 
sure to like it the next time I pick up the 
magazine. So keep up the good work and try 
to figure out a way to make up that new maga- 
zine. — Lester L. A. Neland, 1846 North Park 
Ave., Chicago, Illinois. 



A New Reader Tells Why! 

Dear Editor : 

I am a very new reader and perhaps slightly 
younger than most of your readers, since I am 
only eleven. I have enjoyed only two issues of 
Astounding Stories — November and December. 
My mother gave me money this morning to buy 
therJanuary issue if it has come. 

My father is a newspaperman and I have 
been living in Berlin, Germany. We just came 
home in October and I have been in seven coun- 
tries in the last two years : Canada, England, 
Holland, Germany, France, Ireland, and Amer- 
ica. In none of these countries have I found 
so much enjoyment as I do in Astounding 
Stories. 

And now to do the mission of the letter : 
on the Editor’s Page in the December issue you 
asked more readers to write on the subject of 
the balance—of science and adventure in the 
stories. 

In the December issue: Davey Jones ’ Ambas- 

sador — exactly right ; Nova Solis — a fine story 
but a little too little adventure. The Mad Moon 
— I repeat, exactly right. Human Machines — 
enough adventure but too little science. The 
Fourth-Dimensional Demonstrator — neither 

enough science nor enough adventure — too much 
love. Avalanche — an excellent story, just right. 

Best of luck ! — Robert Gibson Thompson, 404 
West 7th St., Owensboro, Kentucky. 



They Want Humor! 

Dear Editor : 

We, the cosigners of this letter, have organ- 
ized as a committee of five to protect our in 
terests against the insidious influence of the 
three of Cleveland. The suggestions and criti- 
cisms made by these three in the January 
Astounding are at decided variance to our 
wishes. Realizing the potency of their methods, 
we have decided to fight the devil with his own 
fire. Therefore, we have cooperated to write 
this reciprocal letter, signed by five instead of 
three and designed to checkmate the influence 
of the three. 

In regard to the illustrations, we wish to 
remain neutral, in so much as we do not 
favor one artist any more than any other. In 
our collective opinion, the matter is relatively 
unimportant anyway. 

We are unanimously in favor of humor and 
plenty of it. We do not like stories as the 
Skylark stories and The Blue Infinity. Top- 
most among our favorites are Old Faithful , 
Islands of the Sun, Twelve Eighty-Seven, and 
Redmask of the Outlands. We hope and be 
lieve that Astounding will continue to give us 
stories of similar quality. The Mad Moon, 
Smothered Seas, and Laboratory Cooperator-S 
are recent examples of good science-fiction. 

Last, but not at all least, we are not ready 
to pay a nickel more to get smooth edges. The 
three of Cleveland are idiots to suggest such 
a thing. We would not mind paying five cents 
more for more pages in higher quality stories — * 
w T e believe the latter order would be hard to 
fill — but Me are not concerned about the edges. 
It’s all the same to me if Astounding is printed 
on scrolls. 

In closing, we wish to state that while there 
has been some' slight dissension on a few points, 
on the whole the foregoing represents with fair 
accuracy the opinions and desires of five of your 
devoted readers. — Lar G. Planet, H. V. Sparks, 
Doctor Vac M. Toob, N. G., A. S. Townding, 
O. M. Davidson, Jr.. Box 24, Ged. Louisiana. 

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THE TOWERS OF MANHATTAN from a new angle— 
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